Gold settled Wednesday, June 28, near its lowest level in 3 months, after strong US economic data overshadowed gold's status as a safe haven, while traders await Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's speech and other data in search of signs of raising interest rates.
Spot gold rose 0.1% to $1915.45 an ounce, hovering near its lowest level since March 16 at $1910 an ounce, and US gold futures settled at $1924.60 an ounce.
Strong economic data (in the US) lifted the dollar and brought gold back to its lowest levels in June last night, said Matt Simpson, chief market analyst at City Index.
Data released on Tuesday indicated that the US economy remains strong, which may prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again to curb inflation.
According to CME Group's Feed Watch service, investors expect 77% of interest rates to be raised in July, and lower from March 2024 onwards, and most major US banks expect to raise interest rates by 25 basis points.
The Fed will publish the minutes of its meeting on June 13th and 14th on July 5th, while it will hold the Federal Open Market Committee meetings on interest rates on the 25th and 26th of the same month.
Investors are eagerly awaiting May PCE data, which will be released on Thursday, among other data, and Powell will speak before the Monetary Policy Committee on Wednesday ahead of an ECB forum.
As for other precious metals, silver rose in spot transactions by 0.2% to $22.93 an ounce, platinum also fell 0.9% to $916.83 an ounce, and palladium fell 1.1% to $1281.48 an ounce.
