(RTTNews) – Gold traded higher on Friday but headed for a fourth consecutive weekly loss, weighed down by a resurgent U.S. dollar on hawkish Fed bets.
Spot gold rose 0.6 percent to $4,050.63 an ounce but remained on course for another weekly loss, after having slipped to a more than seven-month low earlier this week. U.S. gold futures were up half a percent at $4,066.12.
The dollar index weakened slightly as Thursday’s PCE inflation data matched expectations and traders trimmed Federal Reserve rate hike bets.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. note hovered near seven-week lows after Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said that monetary policy is “well positioned” for the current economic environment, suggesting the Fed may not need to be as hawkish as priced in by markets.
At the same time, Williams pushed back the expected return to the Fed’s 2 percent inflation target from 2027 to 2028.
Separately, Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said that inflation is still trending the wrong way but there has been some improvement on the services inflation.
Meanwhile, oil prices fell almost 4 percent to levels last seen in late February despite an attack on a container vessel off Oman raising fresh security concerns and threatening maritime trade.
The incident raised concerns that Iran is seeking to exert greater control over traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned ships against using any Hormuz route not approved by Iran, calling alternative passages ‘highly dangerous and prohibited’.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) said its evacuation plan will be paused until safety assurances could be secured for both the ships involved in the evacuation and commercial vessels operating in the region.
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