Gold jumps, logs first weekly gain in five as Omicron,inflation revive safe-haven bid



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Gold jumps, logs first weekly gain in five as Omicron,inflation revive safe-haven bid
Gold jumps, logs first weekly gain in five as Omicron,inflation revive safe-haven bid (Provided by Financial World)

On Friday, the precious safe-haven yellow metal gold futures’ prices had topped a key psychological handle of $1,800 an ounce and logged their first weekly gain in five, as concerns over a rapidly spreading Omicron variant coupled with an inflation-surge had pushed investors towards safe-haven assets like of gold.

Aside from that, in the day’s global commodity market, gold futures’ prices had received further boost from a broad-based plunge in equity markets, as a number of major Central Banks around the globe had turned more hawkish including the BoE (Bank of England) alongside the US Federal Reserve in a bid to tackle a robust build-up in price pressures.

Nevertheless, later this week, the Bank of England had raised its benchmark borrowing costs to 0.25 per cent from a prior 0.10 per cent, while on Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve had said following its two-day long December 14-15 policy meet the US Central Bank would double up the pace of its bond taper program and that it would more likely to hike interest rates at least thrice in 2022 and 2023 each.

Meanwhile, referring to US Fed’s faster bond-taper that helped rekindle the bullion’s safe-haven appetite, a chief market strategist at Blue Line Futures in Chicago, Phillip Streible said, “Growth is going to slow into next quarter, and U.S.

equities are correcting off their highs, so it seems to be a panic out of equities into safe-haven assets such as gold and silver”.

Gold rises, posts first weekly gain in five

Citing statistics, in the day’s commodity market wind-down, spot gold prices ended 0.2 per cent higher to $1,802.12 an ounce, while US Gold futures’ prices rose 0.4 per cent to $1,804.90 an ounce.

On the week, spot gold prices added 1.1 per cent, marking off their first weekly percentage gain in five as beforementioned. Among other precious metals, palladium contracts leapt 3.1 per cent to $1,782.99 an ounce, while platinum rose 0.5 per cent to $941.71 per ounce.