On Wednesday, gold vacillated between $740 and $750 all through the Far East and early European trading. Gold struggled to tack on about $20 within two hours of the Comex open in New York, but then it was lights out for the rest of the regular trading session.

Fed cuts rates 50 BPS!…  Currencies rally Big!…  3rd QTR GDP to go negative?…  I.O.U.S.A. … And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

U.S. equities rallied yesterday (Tuesday) as the U.S. Federal Reserve convened for the first day of a two-day meeting of its monetary policy committee.

Last year, China was viewed as the driver behind rising commodities prices.

Now the blame for spiraling food and oil prices is increasingly being laid at the door of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke for cutting the fed funds rate to 2% and unleashing yet another wave of inflationary surplus liquidity.

The fallout is now being seen as India, China, the Philippines and Indonesia hike their own interest rates to rein in rising prices.

Consumer prices jumped 7.7% last month, down from 8.5% in April, but inflation there remains top of the list of economic concerns.

There is a 95% chance that the US economy will enter a recession, according to a report in BusinessWeek magazine.

Jennifer Yousfi in Money Morning gives some background and examines strategies for recession proof investing:

U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers cut the benchmark interest rate by less-than-expected three-quarters of a percentage point at their last meeting, a move that was designed to energize a badly flagging economy without causing inflation to spike or exacerbating the greenback’s decline.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 0.9% in the first quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced yesterday (Wednesday).

When the Federal Reserve hinted at the possibility of higher interest rates in the near future, gold dropped $50. But will higher interest rates in the future signal an end to the bull-run for gold?

It’s not only the clouds outside that seem to be lifting. Optimism broke out in various quarters, reflected in global equities. The Dow closed above 13,000 on Thursday. The Nikkei closed above 14,000. The FTSE 100 was over 6,100 by mid-day Friday.