Gold begins to climb as Fed signals monthly $85 trillion bond buyback to continue

Today President Barack Obama stated that if the Congress did not approve the debt ceiling, then the Treasury will not be able to pay the bills that Congress previously approved. Obama stressed several times that restricting the debt ceiling would prevent the country from honoring its commitments to make social security payments, Medicare payments, and cover much of the cost of the military.

“We are not a deadbeat nation,” Obama stressed in a press conference today, promising that his office will see the debt ceiling once again.

This press conference coincided with the second of three trading sessions that saw the price per ounce of gold bullion make real gains.

In addition, further confidence that stimulus measures would continue came from the Federal Bank of San Francisco President John Williams. Today he told policymakers that the Fed will probably need to keep buying assets “well into” the second half of 2013 to compensate for unemployment, which will only decline gradually. This statement is counter to statements in the Fed minutes released on Jan. 3, which indicated that the Fed may cease buying back bonds soon, which amounted to $85 billion monthly. This perceived change in policy contributed to the price of gold dropping in the first part of January.

Analysts attribute the Fed's spending during two previous rounds of monetary easing from December 2008 through June 2011 to the 70 percent rise in the price of gold bullion. During that period, the Fed bought $2.3 trillion of debt.

“Today’s comment is definitely supportive,” Scott Gardner, the chief investment officer at Verdmont Capital SA in Panama City told Bloomberg today, blaming gold’s dip in the last few weeks on the Fed statement at the start of the month.

Meanwhile in the U.K., today a London Bullion Market Association poll of traders and analysts indicated that gold will climb as much as 14 percent this year and average $1,753 per ounce for the year, Bloomberg reported. The 23 members of the London Bullion Market Association predicted the metal will reach $1,914 in 2013.

This will build on the yellow precious metal’s longest growth streak in 90 years. Since 2000, the price of gold has increased year over year.