Title: Gold Up, Close to Eight-month High, Over Fed Minutes

Feb 16, 2022 10:59PM ET

By: AnalysisWatch

On Thursday morning, the gold price rose in Asia and approached the eight-month high it had reached at the beginning of the week. However, the swings were small.

At 10:54 p.m. EDT, gold futures were 0.09% higher at $1, 83.15. The dollar, which usually moves inversely to gold, rose on Thursday morning.

Investors digested the minutes of the Federal Reserve's last meeting, which were released on Wednesday. The minutes showed that the central bank will raise its interest rates in the near term and continue to monitor the level of inflation. The minutes also showed that officials did not commit to a specific pace of rate hikes.

The US Commerce Department also released data on Wednesday showing that retail sales rose 3.3% in January from the previous month and retail sales rose 3.8% in January.

This was the highest increase in 10 months, driven by rising purchases of motor vehicles and other goods.

Data from the Asia-Pacific region also took center stage on Thursday. Japanese trade data showed exports rose 9.6% year-on-year in January, while imports rose 39.6% year-on-year. The adjusted trade balance was 930 billion Japanese yen ($8.05 billion), while the trade balance was -2.19 billion Japanese yen.

In Australia, previously released employment data showed that the change in employment in January was 12,900 people and the change in full employment was 17,500 people. The unemployment rate was 4.2%.

Investors are also keeping an eye on tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine. The US has denied Russia's claim that it has withdrawn its troops from the Ukrainian border, claiming that Russia has instead increased up to 7,000 troops. Russia, however, continues to deny any plans to attack Ukraine and called the US claims "hysteria".

In other precious metals, silver was unchanged at $23.54 an ounce, while palladium rose 0.2% and platinum fell 0.5%.