By Anushree Ashish Mukherjee
(Reuters) – Gold prices held steady on Wednesday as investors awaited clues from the U.S. Federal Reserve officials on the interest rate path, while auto-catalyst metal palladium dropped to a five-year low on growing concerns over demand. Spot gold was steady at $2,034.82 per ounce, as of 01:54 p.m. ET (1854 GMT).
U.S. gold futures settled mostly unchanged at $2051.7.
Gold was anchored and people did not have the clarity on when Fed is going to cut rates, said Phillip Streible, chief market strategist at Blue Line Futures in Chicago. Investors are awaiting remarks from Fed officials due to speak this week. The focus is likely to shift later to next week’s inflation report for further clues on the timing of rate cuts.
Two Fed officials said on Tuesday if the U.S. economy performs as expected, it could open the door to rate cuts. But the fight against inflation is “not done yet.”.
Strong U.S. economic data and hawkish remarks from Fed Chair Jerome Powell have dashed hopes for a rate cut in March and triggered traders to cut back bets of a May U.S. rate cut.
Meanwhile, palladium fell 5.5% to $899.23, hitting its lowest since 2018. “Combination of some concerns about European and Chinese demand in the auto sector is probably the main driver behind this pullback that we’re seeing in Palladium prices,” said David Meger, director of metals trading at High Ridge Futures.
Palladium is predominantly utilized in catalytic converters for vehicles, playing a crucial role in reducing harmful emissions. The metal demand was also affected by a more-than-expected fall in German industrial production in December, the federal statistics office said on Wednesday, marking the seventh monthly decline in a row and highlighting weakness in the backbone of Europe’s largest economy. Elsewhere, spot platinum lost 2.6% to $879.99 and silver fell 0.8% to $22.23 per ounce.
(Reporting by Anushree Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Macfie and Shinjini Ganguli)
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