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Gold futures climbed on Monday, but held ground below the key $1,800 mark as investors look ahead to this week’s Federal Reserve meeting.
“Inflation continues to worry central bank officials, with lingering supply chain issues and high energy prices making a protracted rise in consumer prices more likely than previously thought,” said Ricardo Evangelista, senior analyst at ActivTrades, in a daily note.
“Amidst such concerns, the Federal Reserve looks set to announce the beginning of the tapering of its asset purchase program when it holds a policy setting meeting later this week — a scenario that is likely to offer support to the dollar and penalize the precious metal, due to the inverted correlation between the two assets,” he said.
The Fed will hold a two-day meeting set to conclude Wednesday with a decision on monetary policy.
See: Fed seen announcing start of a ‘taper’ of bond purchases next week
Also read: What Federal Reserve tapering means for markets
For now, however, the two levels to watch in the gold market “remain support at $1,725 and resistance at $1,835,” analysts at Sevens Report Research wrote in Monday’s newsletter. “Until one of those levels is violated gold will remain pinned in a sideways trading range.”
Gold for December delivery
GC00,
GCZ21,
was up $12.40, 0.7%, at $1,796.30 an ounce on Comex, after trading as high as $1,797.50. The precious metal, based on the most-active contract, ended Friday with a weekly decline of 0.7%, according to Dow Jones Market Data, but rose 1.5% in October — the strongest monthly advance since July.
December silver SIZ21 SI00 was also up 19.6 cents, or 0.8%, to $24.145 an ounce. The metal on Friday notched the first monthly advance in five months, up 8.6% in October. For the week, silver ended down by about 2.1%.
Gold was pressured last week as the dollar rallied. A stronger dollar can be a negative for gold and other commodities priced in the unit, making them more expensive to users of other currencies.
Prices for the yellow metal gained more ground Monday following the latest U.S. economic data.
A closely-followed index of U.S.-based manufacturing inched lower to 60.8% in October from 61.1% in the prior month, the Institute for Supply Management said Monday.
In other Comex trading, December copper
HGZ21,
lost 0.3% to $4.356 a pound. January platinum
PLF22,
tacked on 4.3% to $1,064.90 an ounce and December palladium
PAZ21,
traded at $2,055 an ounce, up 3.8%.
