Jaafar Kassem / Anatolia
Gold prices rose, on Friday, and headed to record gains for the second week, taking advantage of the weakness of the dollar, with the waning of the impact of the minutes of the last meeting of the US Central Bank, which came in line with the expectations of the markets in terms of tightening monetary policy.
By 7:30 (GMT), the yellow metal was traded in spot transactions at $ 1857.08 an ounce, an increase of $ 6.26, or 0.34 percent.
And US gold futures rose $7.3, or 0.38%, to $1,855.3 an ounce.
The precious metal is set to record a weekly gain of about 0.2 percent for the second week in a row.
And on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve (the US central bank) published the minutes of its monetary policy committee meeting, which was held on 3 and 4 May, in which it stated that all members of the committee support raising interest rates twice by half a percentage point each time, in June and next July.
The minutes came in line with market expectations regarding the US Central Bank’s intentions to raise interest rates in an effort to curb the inflation rate, the highest in 40 years.
Raising interest rates would reduce the attractiveness of gold, which is used as a hedge against inflation and does not generate a return, but the weakness of the dollar and the investors’ fear of the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis overcame the factors related to inflation and interest rates.
On Friday, the dollar index, which measures the performance of the US currency against a basket of six major competing currencies, fell 0.19 percent to 101.66 points.
And the dollar is heading to record a weekly loss of more than one percent.
And the weak dollar reduces the cost of gold to holders of other currencies.
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