Gold prices pressured by dollar strength, hawkish Fed risks

By Ambar Warrick

Investing.com -- Gold prices moved little on Thursday, but were nursing losses for the week as the dollar hit a six-week high on fears of a hawkish Federal Reserve, with focus now turning to upcoming economic data for more cues on the U.S. economy and monetary policy.

A revised reading on fourth-quarter U.S. GDP is due later in the day, with any continued signs of resilience in the economy giving the Fed more headroom to keep raising interest rates. Stronger-than-expected readings on business activity furthered such a notion this week.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index for January is also due on Friday, and is expected to reiterate that inflation remained sticky through the month. The reading is also likely to attract more calls by the Fed for sharper interest rate hikes in the coming months.

Spot gold moved little at $1,824.76 an ounce, while gold futures fell 0.1% to $1,832.85 an ounce by 19:07 ET (00:07 GMT). Both instruments were down about 0.4% so far this week.

The minutes of the Fed’s February meeting, released on Wednesday, showed that most members of the monetary policy committee supported raising interest rates for longer this year. But their calls for 25 basis point hikes were regarded as outdated, given that data after the Fed’s meeting showed that inflation remained much stickier than expected.

Still, the dollar rose to a new six-week high against a basket of currencies. Rising interest rates push up the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets such as gold and other precious metals.

Inflation readings from the euro zone and Japan are also due this week, and are expected to show that price pressures remain elevated across the globe, likely eliciting tighter monetary conditions.

Other precious metals were trading lower on Thursday. Silver futures fell 0.6% to $21.530 an ounce, while platinum futures fell 0.1% to $950.80 an ounce.

Among industrial metals, high-grade copper futures were muted at $4.1790 a pound, after falling 1.1% on Wednesday.

Still, prices of the red metal were nearly 2% so far this week, amid some signs of resilience in U.S. business activity, as well as optimism over a recovery in China.