NEW YORK: Gold edged higher on Thursday after a three-day losing streak buoyed by a dip in Treasury yields, but gains were capped by a firmer dollar while investors looked for more economic cues that could influence rate hikes.
Spot gold rose 0.2% to $1,763.85 per ounce, as of 1443 GMT, having slipped to $1,759.17 on Wednesday, its lowest since Aug. 3. US gold futures rose 0.1% to $1,777.50 per ounce.
Investors continued to digest minutes from the US Federal Reserve’s July meeting released on Wednesday. The minutes showed more rate hikes were in the pipeline, but also signalled Fed officials had begun to more explicitly acknowledge the risk they might go too far and curb economic activity.
TD Securities commodity strategist Daniel Ghali said lower US Treasury yields could be driving the marginal uptick in non-interest bearing bullion, with rate hikes largely priced in.
But the Fed could push back against the idea the rate hike cycle may come to an end at the coming Jackson Hole Symposium, “as it is too early to declare victory against inflation,” Ghali added.
Limiting bullion’s gains, the dollar rose, making gold more expensive for overseas buyers.
Assuming the Fed will fight inflation without pushing the economy into recession, safe-haven demand will fade further, causing gold to move gradually lower on a medium to longer-term horizon, said Carsten Menke, Head Next Generation Research at Julius Baer.
Meanwhile, US weekly jobless claims dipped as the labor market remains resilient.
The Fed’s Mary Daly, meanwhile, said either a half or 75-basis-point interest-rate hike in September would be “reasonable”.
In the physical markets, Swiss gold exports to top consumer China in July rose to their highest since December 2016.
Spot silver fell 0.5% to $19.75 per ounce, platinum fell 0.7% to $917.13 and palladium up 0.5% to $2,151.00.
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