Gold heads for its biggest weekly loss in more than a year
Gold headed for the biggest weekly loss in 15 months as the Federal Reserve’s hawkish tilt sent the dollar surging.
Officials signaled monetary policy tightening could start earlier than expected, with Chair Jerome Powell saying that the central bank would begin a discussion about scaling back bond purchases used to support financial markets and the economy during the pandemic.
The surprisingly hawkish Fed shift of bringing forward the start of rate hikes puts it on course to formally announce tapering at their September gathering and begin to slow its $120-billion in monthly bond buying in November, according to economists at Barclays.
“The taper tantrum trade is hitting gold the hardest right now and could last a couple more sessions,” said Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda. “Gold looks like a falling knife but eventually the longer-term prospects will attract buyers. Long-term bets on gold could start to emerge closer to the $1 750 level, but some might wait and see if one last thrust lower eyes the $1 675 level. ”
While the Fed sped up their expected pace of policy tightening, Powell cautioned that discussions about raising interest rates would be “highly premature.”
Spot gold rose 0.3% to $1 778.09 an ounce at 8:52 a.m. in Singapore, after tumbling to $1,767.34 on Thursday, the lowest since May 3. Prices are down 5.3% this week, the most since March 2020. Silver, palladium and platinum all advanced. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index slipped 0.1% to pare this week’s gain to 1.5%.
