Gold labours under firm dollar as currency remains close to one-year high

Bengaluru — Gold prices eased for a sixth consecutive session on Friday, hovering near a one-year low hit in the previous session, as the dollar traded close to a one-year high.

Spot gold was down 0.3% at $1,218.72/oz at 3.52am GMT. In the previous session, it fell to its weakest since early July last year at $1,211.08/oz. US gold futures were down 0.5% at $1,218.30/oz.

“It seems gold cannot really get anything going on the upside,” said INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir.

“So nothing changed despite the flurry caused by the president’s remarks and so gold continues to labour under a stronger dollar, higher rates slated for the balance of this year and next and general fund disenchantment with the long side.”

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, stood at 95.127. It dropped from a one-year high on Thursday after US President Donald Trump expressed concern about the currency’s strength and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases. Trump on Thursday criticised Fed’s policy even though most economists believe the highest inflation in seven years and lowest unemployment in 40 years justify recent interest rate rises and a strong US dollar. This comes after Fed chairman Jerome Powell in a two-day congressional testimony said the US was on course for years more of steady growth and reaffirmed the expectation for more interest rate rises. Rising US interest rates tend to boost the dollar and make gold more expensive for other holders.

Elsewhere, the EU’s trade commissioner on Thursday said she hoped an EU mission to Washington would ease a transatlantic trade dispute but the bloc was preparing a list of US imports to hit if the US imposed tariffs on EU cars. The US imposed tariffs on EU steel and aluminium on June 1, and Trump is threatening to extend them to EU cars and car parts. Financial leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies meet in Buenos Aires this weekend for the first time since China and the US put tariffs on $34bn of each other’s goods.

Spot gold might test a support at $1,204.45/oz, a break below which could cause a loss to the next support at $1,194, Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao said.

Meanwhile, Holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund (ETF), rose 0.52% to 798.13 tonnes on Thursday.

In other precious metals, silver fell 0.2% to $15.23/oz.

Platinum was 0.6% lower at $799.45/oz, while palladium was up 0.7% at $875.50/oz.

Reuters