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Gold futures were edging lower on Friday and were likely to book a sharp weekly fall, the first such decline in March so far.
April gold
GCJ22,
GC00,
was trading $3.90, or 0.2%, lower at $1,939.30 an ounce, following a 1.8% advance on Thursday, which halted a four-session skid, FactSet data show. For the week, gold is on track to fall 2.2%.
The lackluster week for the precious metal comes as a new regime of higher U.S. and U.K. interest rates, bearish for bullion, commences with the Fed raising benchmark rates by a quarter percentage point to between 0.25% and 0.5% and laying out plans for ongoing increases in the policy rate, as widely expected.
Carlo Alberto De Casa, external market analyst at Kinesis Money, said that “the evolution of the war between Russia and Ukraine and the next Fed’s decisions will be the main market drivers for the gold price.”
Despite the recent decline, De Casa said that many investors remain bullish on bullion.
“The appetite for bullion remains massive,” the analyst said.
The analyst sees the precious metal holding support at two levels: “the first one is the $1,920 area (which is where gold peaked in 2011), followed by the $1,900 threshold.”
Meanwhile, May silver
SIK22,
gave up 24 cents, or 0.9%, to trade at $$25.40 an ounce, after a 3.7% a day ago. Gold’s sister metal is headed for a nearly 3% weekly decline, which would snap a six-week streak of gains.
