21.08.201906:47:00UTC+00Gold Holds Above $1,500 Ahead Of Fed Minutes

Gold prices fell slightly on Wednesday but held above the key $1,500 an ounce level, as investors await the Fed's July policy meeting minutes later in the day and a speech by Fed chairman Jerome Powell at an annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday for possible clues on further U.S. interest rate cuts.

Spot gold declined 0.45 percent to $1,500.76 per ounce while U.S. gold futures were down 0.35 percent at $1,510.55 an ounce.

After cutting interest rates by 25 basis points last month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the rate cut should not be seen as "the beginning of a lengthy cutting cycle,".

However, CME Group's FedWatch tool currently indicates a 95 percent chance of another 25 basis point rate cut in September.

President Donald Trump wants the Fed to cut rates by 100 bps and restart QE to boost the economy.

Meanwhile, traders largely shrugged off Trump's anti-China rhetoric. Trump said on Tuesday that he had to confront China over trade even if it caused short-term harm to the U.S. economy "because Beijing had been cheating Washington for decades".