June 19, 2017 -- Precious metals markets enter the first trading week of summer under pressure. Metals prices fell last week following the Federal Reserve's somewhat hawkish policy statement.

The big news from the Federal Reserve wasn't the quarter point rate hike (which was expected). The big news was Fed chair Janet Yellen's announcement of "balance sheet normalization."

In plain English, the Fed claims it will begin selling off assets from its balance sheet, which remains bloated from previous Quantitative Easing programs. If "normalization" does actually proceed at full speed, it would entail $50 billion in financial assets per month being dumped into the market.

Not even Fed officials know how markets will react to the fire sale. But it will likely have the effect of a set of stealth rate hikes. That's assuming Yellen follows through on her "normalization" threat.

Despite Yellen's hawkish tone, Fed fund futures markets are pricing in only a 45% chance of another rate hike before the end of the year. The central bank may not get very far in unwinding its balance sheet either, especially given extant economic fragilities.

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