By Deep Kaushik Vakil
(Reuters) – Gold held around five-month lows on Monday, pressured by higher bond yields as markets geared up for the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium for clues on where interest rates might settle.
Spot gold was largely flat at $1,887.70 per ounce by 1001 GMT, while U.S. gold futures added 0.1% to $1,917.70.
“The market remains concerned about the outlook for rates in the U.S. and most clearly, the recent spike that we’ve seen in the bond yields to a cycle high,” said Ole Hansen, Saxo Bank’s head of commodity strategy.
“The cost of holding a gold position right now is simply too high for longer-term investors to get involved.”
Gold grazed its lowest since mid-March at $1,883.70 last week, as buoyant economic data raised bets for higher-for-longer U.S. interest rates, reducing demand for the non-yielding commodity.
Rising Treasury bond yields and home mortgage rates may reduce support at the U.S. Federal Reserve for additional rate increases, the prospect of which has already been ebbing on the basis of weaker inflation.
Investors now look to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday, as central bankers from around the world assemble in Jackson Hole for their annual conference.
“The discussion is likely to be centered around whether it warrants a higher level of longer-term equilibrium interest rates versus a decade ago,” said Kelvin Wong, senior market analyst, Asia Pacific, OANDA.
“If the longer-term equilibrium interest rate scenario is justified by an elevated sticky inflation environment, gold may now start to behave as a hedging instrument and attract inflows given that prices have dropped to attractive levels.”
SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings rose 0.3% on Friday, reporting its first inflow in a month. [GOL/ETF]
Silver climbed 0.6% to $22.85 per ounce and platinum fell 0.5% to $905.41. Palladium shed 1.3% to $1,239.91.
(Reporting by Deep Vakil and Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K)
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