Gold trading continued to struggle to post gains amid a 10 -year strengthening of U.S. treasury yields following expectations of more aggressive action by the Federal Reserve (Fed) in raising interest rates.
In the Asian session, the precious metal moved weakly hovering around $ 1,922 an ounce, weighed down by US bond yields that continued to strengthen at their highest level since May 2019.
Markets are now placing expectations for an interest rate hike of 50 basis points at the FOMC policy meeting in May after Chairman Jerome Powell said their readiness to raise rates by more than 25 basis points to curb high inflation.
Gold typically tends to decline following expectations of tightening monetary policy by the central bank and stronger bond yields reducing the attractiveness of the precious metal.
Even so, plans by the United States and its allies to announce more sanctions against Moscow have slightly limited gold’s recorded losses despite ongoing Ukraine-Russia peace talks.
Investors ’focus next shifted to the publication of UK annual inflation data on the European session which is expected to continue to show improvement and Powell’s speech at the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Summit in the New York session.
