American Markets and Commodity Markets

commodity markets: On commodity markets, the July crude contract gave back five cents to $59.92 a barrel, while the August gold contract fell $4.10 to $1,176.80 an ounce, according to The Toronto Star. American markets, down earlier in the day, rebounded to modest gains after the Fed said -- following its two-day policy meeting -- that although the U.S. economy has strengthened in recent months, it wants to see further gains in the job market and higher inflation before hiking interest rates from record lows. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 20.07 points at 14,732.98, while the loonie was up 0.51 of a U.S. cent at 81.73 cents. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 31.26 points at 17,935.74, while the Nasdaq added 9.33 points to 5,064.88 and the S&P 500 was 4.15 points higher at 2,100.44While the Fed gave no timetable for a rate hike, all but two of its 17 policy-makers think the Fed will raise its key short-term rate some time this year. Craig Jerusalim, portfolio manager, CIBC Asset Management, said that while it was no surprise that the Fed didn’t raise rates on Wednesday, in a general sense, I think they should have. That rate has been held near zero since 2008 and has helped fuel markets ever since the Great Recession. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.