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Gold futures drifted lower Thursday, a day after minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting affirmed that policy makers expect to push rates higher and keep them there.
Price action
-
Gold for April delivery
GC00,
-0.28% GCJ23,
-0.28%
fell $8.40, or 0.5%, to $1,833 an ounce on Comex. -
March silver
SIH23,
-0.12%
was down 0.6% at $21.555 an ounce. -
April platinum
PLJ23,
+0.50%
rose 0.4% to
HGH23,
-1.04%
$956.90 an ounce, while March palladium
PAH23,
-1.67%
was down 0.8% at $1,470 an ounce. -
March copper
HGH23,
-1.04%
shed 0.8% to $4.158 a pound.
Market drivers
Minutes of the Fed’s Jan. 31-Feb. 1 policy meeting released Wednesday afternoon affirmed that policy makers were solidly behind plans to continue raising rates, but offered no major surprises.
Treasury yields and the dollar
DXY,
have risen since the beginning of February as market participants have boosted expectations for Fed interest-rate increases. Rising yields raise the opportunity cost of holding nonyielding assets like gold, while a stronger dollar makes commodities priced in the unit more expensive to users of other currencies.
“Rates and the dollar have been trending higher in recent weeks and if the hawkish money flows continue, the path of least resistance will be lower for gold,” wrote analysts at Sevens Report Research, in a Thursday note.
