Gold climbs to one-week high on frazzled dollar

London — Gold rose to a one-week high on Tuesday as the dollar weakened after US President Donald Trump criticised the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates.

A weaker dollar generally boosts the price of dollar-denominated gold.

Spot gold was 0.2% higher at $1,192.80/oz by 12.11pm GMT, after touching $1,196.27 earlier, the highest level since August 14. The precious metal was gaining for the third consecutive session.

US gold futures climbed 0.4% to $1,199.60/oz.

“Trump’s noises are helping gold demand at the margins but the root of that is largely through the dollar easing,” said ETF Securities analyst Nitesh Shah.

Trump also said in the interview with Reuters that the US central bank should do more to help him to boost the economy.

Trump made his first departure from a tradition of American presidents rarely criticising the Fed in July when he condemned the US central bank’s monetary policy tightening.

Although Trump’s comments helped gold rise, Julius Baer analyst Carsten Menke said the comments would not fundamentally change the outlook for bullion or monetary policy in the US.

“In the end what determines the outlook for US monetary policy is the health of the US economy,” he said.

Gold is highly sensitive to rising US rates as it increases the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding metal while boosting the dollar.

The US central bank has raised interest rates twice this year and is targeting two more hikes, with the next one seen in September. However, Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic said on Monday he was maintaining his expectation for only one more interest rate hike in 2018.