Title: Gold Up, Dollar Near Two-Year High as Fed Minutes Maintain Hawkish Stance

Apr 07, 2022 02:00AM ET

By: AnalysisWatch

Gold rose in Asia on Thursday morning, while the dollar remained near a two-year high after the US Federal Reserve maintained its hawkish stance in the minutes of its latest meeting.

By 1:54 PM ET, gold futures were up 0.01 percent to $1,923.30. The dollar, which usually moves inversely to gold, fell on Thursday but hovered near a two-year high.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield was near a multi-year high reached in the previous session.

The Fed on Wednesday released the minutes of its March 2022 meeting, which indicated that the central bank is poised to take aggressive steps to curb high inflation.

Many policymakers said they were prepared to raise interest rates by a half-percentage point at upcoming meetings, even as risks from the war in Ukraine kept them to a standard 0.25% hike in March.

The European Central Bank will also publish the minutes of its meeting later in the day.

Although it is expected to take a less hawkish tone than the Fed, the ECB is another central bank trying to strike the right balance to curb inflation without falling into recession.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the Reserve Bank of India will also release its policy decision on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Perth Mint said on its blog on Wednesday that sales of gold products rose 68% in March, the most in a year. The refinery attributed the increase to increased interest in the safe-haven yellow metal following Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

In other precious metals, silver fell 0.2%, platinum declined 0.1%, and palladium gained 0.5%.