Gold Up as Ukraine-Russia Peace Talks Show Some Signs of Progress

Gold was up on Wednesday morning in Asia, remaining near a one-month low hit during the previous session. Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine showed progress and dimmed the yellow metal’s safe-haven appeal. However, a weaker dollar and falling yields limited losses.

Gold futures were up 0.62% to $1,924 by 12:23 AM ET (4:23 AM GMT), dropping as much as 1.8% to $1,889.45 on Tuesday, the lowest level since Feb. 28. The dollar, which usually moves inversely to gold, was down on Wednesday and U.S. benchmark 10-year yields also fell from near three-year highs.

Ukraine and Russia resumed face-to-face peace talks in Istanbul on Tuesday. During these talks, Russia promised to scale down military operations around Kyiv and another city. However, the U.S. warned the threat was not over, even as Ukraine proposed adopting a neutral status in a sign of progress.

Holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust (P:GLD) edged down 0.2% to 1,091.44 tons on Tuesday.

In Asia Pacific, Japan’s Ministry of Finance said that it will ban shipments of gold to Russia in response to the war in Ukraine. Data released earlier in the day also showed that retail sales contracted 0.8% year on year in February 2022.

In other precious metals, silver edged down 0.2%, while platinum inched up 0.1%. Palladium gained 0.4% to $2,157.72, after dropping to a more than a two-month low of $2,032.97 during the last session. The auto-catalyst metal has fallen about 40% since hitting an all-time peak on Mar. 7, as concerns about Russian supply eased.