By Noel John<\/p>\n
March 18 (Reuters) – Gold prices edged lower on Wednesday as investors remained cautious, assessing the economic impact of the Middle East conflict ahead \u200cof the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy decision.<\/p>\n
Spot gold edged down 0.4% to $4,984.29 \u200cper ounce as of 0442 GMT. U.S. gold futures for April delivery fell 0.4% to $4,987.30.<\/p>\n
Gold’s trajectory “will largely depend \u200bon the Fed’s forward-looking guidance … Will the Fed still be looking for one interest rate cut (this year) or will they start to actually pencil in no cut at all due to this very fluid situation in the Middle East,” said Kelvin Wong, a senior market analyst \u200cat OANDA.<\/p>\n
The Fed is widely \u2060expected to hold rates steady for a second straight meeting when it announces its policy decision later in the day.<\/p>\n
Oil prices stayed \u2060above $100 a barrel, as Iranian attacks on the United Arab Emirates deepened fears over the global supply outlook. [O\/R]<\/p>\n
“We may see these oil prices coming down gently, but with that geopolitical risk \u200bpremium still \u200bintact, then that could see some bargain hunting \u200bfor gold,” said Wong.<\/p>\n
The Strait of \u200cHormuz, a conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil shipments, remains largely shut, with Iran threatening to attack tankers linked to the U.S. and Israel.<\/p>\n
The Strait’s closure kept crude elevated, adding to inflationary pressures by pushing up transport and manufacturing costs. The inflation backdrop supports gold as a hedge, but high interest rates dull the metal’s appeal \u200cby boosting returns on yield-bearing assets.<\/p>\n
Israel’s killing of \u200bAli Larijani, Iran’s security chief and the most senior \u200bfigure targeted since the first day \u200bof the U.S.-Israeli war, has further escalated tensions. A senior Iranian \u200cofficial said the country’s new supreme leader \u200bhad rejected de-escalation proposals \u200bpassed on by intermediary nations.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, central banks in the UK, the euro zone, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, and Sweden meet this week in their first decisions since \u200bthe start of the Iran \u200cwar.<\/p>\n
Spot silver fell 1.1% to $78.42 per ounce. Spot platinum was down 1.2% \u200bat $2,098.20, and palladium lost 1.3% to $1,580.81.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Noel John in Bengaluru; Editing by \u200bSumana Nandy, Rashmi Aich and Mrigank Dhaniwala)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Noel John March 18 (Reuters) – Gold prices edged lower on Wednesday as investors remained cautious, assessing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,5275,85,46,168658,104581,16540,12522],"class_list":["post-345292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gold-prices","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-kelvin-wong","tag-policy-decision","tag-spot-gold","tag-u-s-federal-reserve"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345292","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=345292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}