The Herald (Zimbabwe)

Gold prices up

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GOLD inched up yesterday in thin trading as investors made purchases after prices touched nearly oneweek lows in the previous session, but improved appetite for riskier assets capped bullion’s gains.

Spot gold had risen 0,2 percent to $1,314.10 per ounce by 0651 GMT, having hit its weakest since 29 January at $1,308.20 in the last session. U.S. gold futures were firm at $1,318.10 an ounce. Liquidity was low in Asia’s gold markets, with much of the region on holiday for the Lunar New Year.

“There is strong technical support and the Fed is mostly dovish, which should see gold supported around the $1,300-area,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst, OANDA, adding that a risk-on environmen­t was taking a bit of sheen out of gold.

“The focus would be more on the U.S. earnings season due to the absence of China for the whole week.”

Spot gold rose to its highest since late April at $1,326.30 last week, after the U.S. Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady and said it would be patient on further hikes amid a suddenly cloudy outlook for the U.S. economy due to global growth concerns and the US-China trade dispute.

However, solid US jobs data that came out on Friday allayed concerns of an immediate slowdown in the US economy.

The central bank may need to raise interest rates a bit further if the economy does well, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said on Monday.

“It seems to us that investors will need to get more signals before getting more aggressive in (acquiring long positions in gold), which won’t come until $1,360 or so,” analysts at TD Securities said in a research note.

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