• Gold hit a one-week high on Thursday after the US Federal Reserve signalled a cautious stance on interest rate policy this year, pushing the dollar to its lowest in a month.
• The Fed on Wednesday raised interest rates for the second time in three months, with officials sticking to their outlook for two more rate hikes this year and three more in 2018
• Fed Chair Janet Yellen said that the central bank would stick to a gradual path of interest rate rises even if inflation runs above its 2% target.
• “The lack of signs of further tightening have seen gold prices jump quite drastically post the meeting,” said ANZ analyst Daniel Hynes.
• The euro strengthened against the US currency after early returns showed the Netherlands’ centre-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte had roundly seen off a challenge by anti-Islam, anti-EU Geert Wilders in an election on Wednesday, a huge relief to other EU governments facing a wave of nationalism.
Prices of the yellow metal could find further support from uncertainty over other elections in Europe, analysts said.
“It looks like the worst case scenario in terms of uncertainty in the Dutch elections has passed, but the market will be looking at the French election coming up relatively soon as well,” Hynes said.
“However, we would need to see the far right in particular really gather strong resolve from those elections to see gold prices being pushed even higher.”
• Spot gold is expected to test a resistance at $1,229 per ounce, a break above which could lead to a gain to the next resistance at $1,237, according to Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.
• Spot gold <XAU=> had risen 0.6 percent to $1,226.21 per ounce at 0623 GMT after touching $1,226.95, the highest since March 7, earlier in the session.
• In other precious metals, spot silver <XAG=> climbed 0.8 percent to $17.43 per ounce, after hitting its highest in a week at $17.48 earlier in the session
Reference: LiveMint
Thai
Eng