NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Gold prices were falling Wednesday as investors appeared uncertain of any easing signals from the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy announcement expected Wednesday afternoon.
Gold for December delivery was falling $13.40 to $1601.20 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gold price traded as high as $1,621.80 and as low as $1,598 an ounce, while the spot price was down $14.60.
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"Last week we did expand the [trading] range, we moved to the higher parts of that range, and it was very disappointing," said Stanley Dash, vice president of applied technical analysis at TradeStation Securities. "There was no follow through, it began to get a little questionable the last day or two ... and we're paying the price here with the selloff."
Silver prices for September delivery were dipping about 68 cents to $27.23 an ounce, while the U.S. dollar index was down 0.07% to $82.64.
Gold investors are awaiting a forthcoming monetary policy announcement Wednesday from the Fed after a report last week suggested that Fed members had moved closer to quantitative easing efforts.
"Aggressive action by the Fed ... could give gold another quick boost and trigger the resumption of a durable bull-market advance," Jeffrey Nichols, senior economic adviser at Rosland Capital, said in a research note.
On the other hand, Nichols said that Fed failure to adopt aggressive monetary stimulus could quickly sink gold below $1,600 an ounce.
The eurozone has remained freshly in the minds of traders a week after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said he was committed to do whatever he would take to hold the currency zone together. After the Fed rumors and Draghi comments, gold burst through the psychological $1,600 mark and gained 2.5% last week.
China's July manufacturing PMI came in late Tuesday at 50.1, below analysts' expectations. Though the number showed manufacturing there had avoided contraction, it still revealed a drop from 50.2 the previous month. China has already shown willingness to take up easing monetary policies, and more cooling hasn't taken that option off the table
Gold mining stocks opened mostly lower Wednesday. Kinross Gold(KGC) and Goldcorp(GG) were both dropping more than 3%.
Among other mining stocks, Barrick Gold(ABX), Eldorado Gold(EGO) and AngloGold Ashanti(AU) were down 2%, 2.4% and 2.9%, respectively.
