Precious: Gold firms on dollar retreat; set for best week in seven

HighGold Mining

12/03/2021 15:25

* Benchmark U.S. Treasury yields hit over 1-year high
    * Gold up 1.4% so far this week 
    * Silver on track for first weekly gain in four
    * Platinum set to post biggest weekly gain in four weeks

 (Recasts, adds comments, updates prices)
    By Brijesh Patel
    March 12 (Reuters) - Gold prices edged higher on Friday and
were on course for their best week in seven, as a slight
pullback in the dollar and weakness in equity markets offset
pressure from rising U.S. Treasury yields.
    Spot gold  XAU=  was up 0.2% at $1,724.16 per ounce at 02:10
p.m. ET (1910 GMT), after falling as much as 1.4% earlier in the
session. Gold is up 1.4% so far this week.
    U.S. gold futures  GCv1  settled down 0.2% at $1,719.80.
    "We've seen a bit of weakness in the U.S. dollar (index), it
slumped from around 92 to now just over 91.6," said Bart Melek,
head of commodity strategies at TD Securities.
    "There's a little bit of risk off sentiment and I suspect
the psychological level of $1,700 where people weren't really
prepared to go under generated a bit of a rebound in the gold
market."  MKTS/GLOB 
    Benchmark U.S. Treasury yields  US10YT=RR  rose as high as
1.642%, a more than one-year peak. Meanwhile, the dollar index
 .DXY  pared gains, making gold less expensive for other
currency holders.  US/   USD/ 
    Some investors view gold as a hedge against higher inflation
that could follow stimulus measures, but higher Treasury yields
dull some of the appeal of the non-yielding commodity.
    President Joe Biden on Thursday signed his $1.9 trillion
stimulus bill into law and said he was working to move the
United States closer to normality by July 4.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2L91A4
    "With physical demand providing something of a floor, we
doubt that the gold price will fall below $1,600 per ounce this
year," Capital Economics analysts said in a note.  GOL/AS 
    "Given our forecast for industrial metals prices to fall
later this year, we wouldn't be surprised if the price of silver
fell relative to the price of gold."
    Silver  XAG=  fell 0.9% to $25.85 an ounce, but was on track
for its first weekly gain in four weeks. Palladium  XPD=  rose
0.9% to $2,366.35. Platinum  XPT=  gained 0.5% to $1,200.41 an
ounce and was up 6.3% for the week.

 (Reporting by Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru. Editing by David
Gregorio and Mark Potter)
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