Gold prices continued to soar to unprecedented historical levels during Thursday's trading, amid Federal Reserve officials' confirmation of their expectations of cutting interest rates in 2024, in addition to anticipating jobs data in the United States.
price movement
Spot gold was steady at $2,299.28 an ounce by 0343 GMT, after hitting a record high of $2,304.09 earlier in the session. Gold prices have hit record highs in every session since last Thursday.
U.S. gold futures rose 0.2 percent to $2,318.70.
What's driving gold up is the depreciation of global currencies against the dollar for a variety of reasons... People are buying gold as a hedge against a depreciation of local currencies, said Michael Langford, chief investment officer at Scorpion Minerals.
Federal Reserve officials, including Chairman Jerome Powell, continued to focus on the need for more discussion and data on Wednesday before cutting interest rates, a move financial markets expect to happen in June.
The US jobs report for March is due out on Friday, with fresh inflation data due next week.
If nonfarm payrolls come in line with expectations or are worse than expected in terms of labor market weakness, this would be positive for the possibility of interest rate cuts, which in turn would be positive for gold, Langford explained.
Lower interest rates reduce the opportunity cost of holding bullion.
As for other precious metals, silver fell in spot transactions by 0.5 percent to $27.08 per ounce, platinum fell by 0.1 percent to $935.39 per ounce, while palladium rose by 0.4 percent to $1,017.83 per ounce.
