Gold Up, but Gains Capped by Strengthening Dollar, Rising U.S. Treasury Yields

Gold was up on Wednesday morning in Asia. The yellow metal steadied after slipping 1.6% during the previous session, alongside a strengthening dollar and rising U.S. Treasury yields that capped gains.

Gold futures inched up 0.04% to $1,799.15 by 12:31 AM ET (4:31 AM GMT) hovering slightly above the more than one-week low of $1,791.90 hit on Tuesday. The dollar, which normally moves inversely to gold, inched up to remain near a one-week high on Wednesday.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose up to 1.385% on Tuesday, the first time it has done so since mid-July 2021.

On the data front, Japan’s GDP grew a better-than-expected 1.9% year-on-year and 0.5% quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter of 2021, according to data released earlier in the day.

The Bank of Canada will hand down its policy decision later in the day, followed by the European Central Bank a day later.

With Johns Hopkins University data showing that COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. surpassing 650,000 as of Sep. 8. President Joe Biden will propose a six-prong strategy to curb the current COVID-19 outbreak involving the Delta variant and boost vaccination rates.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s gold reserves fell by three tons in the first half of 2021 and are currently at their lowest level in 50 years, according to Central Bank of Venezuela data released on Tuesday.

Russia’s Nornickel also said on Tuesday that it has extracted additional metals from waste products, part of new technology that was tested to support its 2021 output from its Arctic mines that were hit by flooding.

In other precious metals, silver inched up 0.1%, platinum was up 0.3% and palladium edged up 0.2%.