By Ishaan Arora<\/p>\n
Feb 11 (Reuters) – Gold and silver prices rose on Wednesday as U.S. Treasury bond yields fell after data showed December retail sales \u200cgrowth stalled, signalling a softening economy ahead of key jobs data.<\/p>\n
Lower U.S. \u200cyields reduce the opportunity cost of holding non\u2011yielding assets such as gold, and they often accompany macroeconomic \u200bshifts, like expectations of slower growth or looser policy, that tend to support precious metals.<\/p>\n
Spot gold was 0.7% higher at $5,057.23 per ounce by 0423 GMT.<\/p>\n
U.S. gold futures for April delivery gained 1% to $5,081.40 per ounce.<\/p>\n
Spot silver was up 2.3% at $82.56\/oz, after falling more \u200cthan 3% in the previous \u2060session.<\/p>\n
“Over the last couple of weeks, (precious metals) became very dislocated from fundamentals, so it pretty much decoupled from interest rate policy. Yields \u2060being lower are obviously supportive of gold today,” said Kyle Rodda, a senior market analyst at Capital.com.<\/p>\n
U.S. yields fell on Tuesday after a raft of data suggested the economy may \u200bbe \u200bsoftening, giving the U.S. Federal Reserve more room \u200bto cut interest rates. [US\/]<\/p>\n
U.S. retail \u200csales were unchanged in December as households scaled back spending on motor vehicles and other big-ticket items, potentially setting consumer spending and the economy on a slower growth path.<\/p>\n
“After soft retail sales numbers, there’s the expectation that perhaps, further and deeper rate cuts may be needed more imminently than previously thought,” Rodda added.<\/p>\n
Federal Reserve Bank of \u200cCleveland President Beth Hammack, however, said on Tuesday \u200bthat the U.S. central bank faces no urgency \u200bto change the setting of interest \u200brates this year amid a “cautiously optimistic” outlook for economic activity.<\/p>\n
Investors expect \u200cat least two 25-basis-point rate cuts \u200bin 2026, with the \u200bfirst one expected in June. Non-yielding bullion tends to do well in low-interest-rate environments. [FEDWATCH]<\/p>\n
Investors await the non-farm payrolls report for January, due later in the day, \u200band inflation data on \u200cFriday for more cues on the Fed’s monetary policy path.<\/p>\n
Spot platinum rose \u200b2.1% to $2,131.60 per ounce, while palladium added 2% to $1,741.78.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ishaan Arora; \u200bEditing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Ronojoy Mazumdar)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ishaan Arora Feb 11 (Reuters) – Gold and silver prices rose on Wednesday as U.S. Treasury bond…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,13275,6118,40,38,41,39,6978],"class_list":{"0":"post-285354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-precious-metals","11":"tag-retail-sales","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-u-s-treasury"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}