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Gold Rises to More Than 3-week High

Gold bars from the vault of a bank are seen in this illustration picture taken in Zurich November 20, 2014. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo
Gold bars from the vault of a bank are seen in this illustration picture taken in Zurich November 20, 2014. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo
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Gold Rises to More Than 3-week High

Gold bars from the vault of a bank are seen in this illustration picture taken in Zurich November 20, 2014. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo
Gold bars from the vault of a bank are seen in this illustration picture taken in Zurich November 20, 2014. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

Gold prices climbed on Thursday to highest in more than 3 weeks as the US dollar and bond yields hit multi-month lows on mounting bets the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates as soon as next March.

Spot gold was up 0.5% at $2,086.69 per ounce, as of 0406 GMT, hitting its highest since Dec. 4, when prices raced to a record high of $2,135.40. It looked set to mark its best year in three with a 14% gain.
US gold futures rose 0.2% to $2,096.50 per ounce.
Lower yields and dollar indicate diminished risk around interest rate volatility "and have given gold that extra drive towards $2100 per ounce level," Kyle Rodda, a financial market analyst at Capital.com, said.
Bets on Fed cutting interest rates firmed following cooler inflation data, with traders now indicating an 88% likelihood of monetary policy easing in March, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Lower interest rates decrease the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion.
Increasing gold's appeal, the dollar index slipped to a five-month low and was set for its worst yearly performance since 2020, while benchmark US 10-year bond yields languished near their lowest level since July.
Going into 2024, gold's movement "depends on whether the markets have gone too ahead of themselves while pricing in rate cuts, and whether recessionary conditions start to emerge in the US," Reuters quoted Rodda as saying.
Market participants now await US initial jobless claims data due at 1330 GMT for further cues on monetary policy.
Spot silver rose 0.7% to $24.42 per ounce and was poised to end the year with a near 2% annual gain.
Platinum rose 0.2% to hit a more than six-month high of $999.00. Palladium rose 0.2% to $1,156.16, but was on track for its biggest yearly decline since 2008.

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Dollar Stays Strong, Political Uncertainty Saps Euro

People walk past a currency exchange office in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
People walk past a currency exchange office in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
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Dollar Stays Strong, Political Uncertainty Saps Euro

People walk past a currency exchange office in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
People walk past a currency exchange office in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

The dollar held firm on Monday, while the euro traded around more than one-month lows, as political turmoil in Europe ramped up the level of uncertainty among traders, while investors awaited more data to gauge the strength of the US economy.

Investors have been contemplating the risk of a budget crisis at the heart of the euro area, as far right and leftist parties gain momentum ahead of France's snap parliamentary election, pressuring President Emmanuel Macron's centrist administration.

Even after the French financial markets endured a brutal sell-off late last week, European Central Bank policymakers have no plans to discuss emergency purchases of French bonds, five sources told Reuters.

The euro eased 0.1% to $1.0699, after falling to its lowest since May 1 at $1.06678 on Friday. The currency also logged its biggest weekly decline since April at 0.88% last week.

"With traders wanting certainty, this may not come until after the second-round vote (July 7), so the prospect of further downside in French and EU markets is real," Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone, said.

The dollar index, which tracks the US currency against a basket of six others, held around its highest since May 2, driven mostly by weakness in the euro.

The single European currency "accounts for around 57% of the US dollar index weighting, the fall of the euro has indirectly benefited the dollar,” said Matt Simpson, senior market analyst at City Index.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said on Sunday it was a "reasonable prediction" that the US central bank would cut interest rates once this year, waiting until December to do it.

The Fed published updated projections last week that showed the median forecast from all 19 US central bankers was for a single interest rate cut this year.

LIGHT WEEK FOR DATA

This week is light on major US economic data to help clarify the Fed's outlook, although US retail sales on Tuesday and flash PMIs on Friday may give hints about consumption and economic strength.

"Data would likely have to miss estimates by a wide margin to rekindle bets of more Fed cuts, with the FOMC meeting still freshly in the minds of investors," said City Index's Simpson.

Sterling fell 0.1% to $1.267. Britain's inflation pressures still appear too hot for the Bank of England to cut rates at its June 20 meeting, with a majority of economists polled by Reuters forecasting the first cut would not come until Aug. 1.

Meanwhile, the yen remained pinned near a 34-year low against the dollar after the Bank of Japan on Friday pushed cuts to bond buying amounts and details of its tapering plan to its July policy meeting.

Governor Kazuo Ueda said he would not rule out raising interest rates in July as weakness in the yen pushes up import costs, although that may not be the hawkish statement that some took it to be, said Hiroyuki Machida, director of Japan FX and commodities sales at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group.

"The sense was that raising rates and tapering are two separate things" that the BOJ would decide whether or not to do based on different criteria, he said.

The yen steadied at 157.49, after slipping to 158.26 after Friday's decision, its lowest since April 29.

The yen's decline to 160.245 per dollar at the end of April triggered several rounds of official Japanese intervention totaling 9.79 trillion yen. In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin was last up 0.7% at $66,220, while ether fell 1.2% to $3,553, according to LSEG data.