© Archyde.com. Gold bars in a photo from the Archyde.com archive.
(Archyde.com) – It rose on Thursday due to a slight decline in interest rates, although higher yields and the prospect of further interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve capped gains.
By 0909 GMT, it rose 0.2 percent to $1,631.54 an ounce. US gold futures rose 0.1 percent to $1,636.50.
“A bit of a weaker US dollar and losses in the stock markets give little support to safe-haven gold,” said Peter Fertig, analyst at Quantitative Commodity Research.
But he added that higher yields in the major bond markets and expectations of further monetary policy tightening by most of the world’s central banks are negatively affecting the yellow metal prices.
And benchmark 10-year Treasury yields are stable near their highest level since mid-2008, increasing the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding gold.
As for other precious metals, it increased in spot transactions by 0.2 percent to $18.47 an ounce. Platinum rose 0.3 percent to $886.50 an ounce. It fell 0.8 percent to $1984.53 an ounce.
(Prepared by Suha Jado for the Arabic Bulletin)