Gold Down, but Set for Second Weekly Gain as Ukraine Conflict Continues By

© Reuters

By Gina Lee

– Gold was down on Friday morning in Asia, with U.S. Treasury yields gaining over the latest U.S. inflation report. However, it was set for a second weekly gain after talks between Russia and Ukraine made little progress.

Gold futures were up 0.58% to $1,988.75 by 12:57PM ET (5:57 AM GMT)

Data released on Thursday showed that the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) grew 7.9% year-on-year and 0.8% month-on-month in February. The core CPI grew 0.5% month-on-month and 6.4% year-on-year.

"To a large degree, it's going to be a war-driven trade again. But what's going to cap sentiment in the absence of any war-time escalation is the FOMC, which is going to be a little bit more hawkish than what markets have currently priced in," SPI Asset Management managing partner Stephen Innes told Reuters.

Benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yields rose after the U.S. report, which also showed the sharpest increase in 40 years. Investors widely expect that the U.S. Federal Reserve will hike interest rates when it hands down its policy decision on Mar. 16.

The European Central Bank kept its interest rate steady at 0% as it handed down its own policy decision on Thursday. However, it made an unexpected hawkish move of accelerating its wind-down of monetary stimulus.

In Asia Pacific, the Bank of Japan will also hand down its policy decision in the following week.

Investors have turned to safe-haven assets ever since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, which gave the yellow metal a boost. Gold has jumped as much as 8.5% in the last two weeks and was close to its record levels hit in August 2020.

Spot gold could retest a support at $1,976 per ounce, a break could cause a fall into $1,924-$1,953 range, according to Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.

In other precious metals, palladium gained 0.6% to $2,945.52 per ounce. It hit a record high of $3,440.76 on Monday, over concerns about supply disruption from top producer Russia.

Silver fell 0.8%, while platinum was down 0.6% to $1,062.51 and set for its worst weekly decline since November 2021.

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