© Reuters. Gold bars displayed in a Seoul shop in South Korea – Photo from the Reuters archive.
(Reuters) – It fell as much as 2% on Thursday, its lowest level in a week, on an increase after the Federal Reserve (the central bank of the United States) said there would be more interest rate hikes next year .
It fell 1.2% to $1,785.36 an ounce by 14:56 GMT, after falling to $1,771.89 an ounce earlier in the session.
U.S. gold futures fell 1.3% to $1,794.40.
“For now, the Fed is sticking to its hawkish message despite the dwindling growth outlook,” said Daniel Ghaly, commodities strategist at TD Securities. , it will be very difficult, speculators should convert their capital into gold.
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 50 basis points on Wednesday as expected, but gold fell 0.8% after comments from US central bank chief Jerome Powell indicated that interest rates should remain high for a longer period.
Powell said Wednesday that the US central bank would adopt further interest rate hikes next year, even as the US economy slipped into a possible recession, and explained that the economy would have to bear a higher price if the Federal Reserve does not curb inflation strongly.
Gold is an inflation hedge, but high interest rates tend to weaken its attractiveness by increasing the opportunity cost of holding non-productive metal.
As for other precious metals, it fell 2.1% to $23.39 an ounce and platinum fell 1.6% to $1012.50, while it fell 1.8% to $1882.75.
(Prepared by Salma Najm and Noha Zakaria for the Arab Bulletin – Edited by Mostafa Saleh)
