By Asha Sistla
(Reuters) – Gold was flat in range-bound trade on Thursday, as the uncertainty over the Ukraine conflict offset pressure from firmer dollar and yields following the U.S. Federal Reserve’s aggressive stance to combat inflation.
Spot gold was flat $1,925.61 per ounce by 0710 GMT. U.S. gold futures was up 0.3% to $1,927.90.
With the correlation between gold and Treasury yields breaking, “the war and high inflation take precedence over the Treasury bills. And that’s the reason why we’ve seen gold prices actually holding well, but also not going up because of pressure of high interest rates,” said Brian Lan, managing director at dealer GoldSilver Central.
The benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yields hovered close to multi-year highs hit in the previous session, increasing the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion. [US/]
Many Fed officials said they were prepared to raise rates in half-percentage-point increments in coming policy meetings to tame inflation, according to the minutes released on Wednesday.
The dollar hovered near a two-year high against a basket of currencies after Fed minutes showed the central bank is preparing to move aggressively to head off inflation. [USD/]
A stronger dollar makes gold less attractive for other currency holders.
However, an “escalation in geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine, people waiting for the Western countries to impose fresh sanctions on Russia – all these are supporting (gold),” said Jigar Trivedi, a commodities analyst at Mumbai-based broker Anand Rathi Shares.
Ukraine wants sanctions that are economically destructive enough for Russia to end its war after accusing some countries of still prioritising money over punishment for civilian killings that the West condemns as war crimes.
Spot silver fell 0.5% to $24.32 per ounce, platinum shed 0.5% to $948.34 and palladium rose 1.4% to $2,228.01.
(Reporting by Asha Sistla in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)
