By Ashitha Shivaprasad <\/p>\n
Aug 27 (Reuters) – Gold prices drifted higher on Thursday as so-called dollar debasement fears lingered, while attention shifted to highly anticipated remarks from \u200cU.S. Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh this week. <\/p>\n
Spot gold was up 0.6% at $4,618.93 \u200cper ounce, by 0437 GMT. U.S. gold futures rose 0.4% to $4,673.60. <\/p>\n
The dollar-debasement narrative, coupled with concerns about the \u200bU.S. budget deficit, remains supportive of gold in the medium term, said Kelvin Wong, a senior market analyst at OANDA. <\/p>\n
Gold prices rose over 5% last week after the U.S. Treasury’s move to expand buybacks of older long-dated bonds, which renewed dollar-debasement fears. <\/p>\n
The U.S. dollar held \u200csteady. A weaker greenback makes dollar-priced \u2060metals cheaper for buyers using other currencies. [USD\/] <\/p>\n
Warsh’s remarks at the annual Jackson Hole symposium in Wyoming on Friday are expected to be closely watched \u2060for further direction. <\/p>\n
“The market is awaiting the speech for greater clarity on how the Fed will navigate the current economic landscape. If he does not provide specific forward-looking monetary policy guidance, \u200bcurrent \u200bmarket pricing for rate hikes is likely to \u200bremain largely unchanged,” Wong said. <\/p>\n
Markets see \u200ca 38.1% probability of a September U.S. rate hike and a 73.6% chance by December, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. <\/p>\n
Data on Wednesday showed that annual U.S. inflation held steady in July well above the Fed’s 2% target, and the unexpected pause in the decline from a recent Iran-war-induced peak is likely to intensify the central bank’s debate over \u200cwhether rates should be lifted or held steady. <\/p>\n
On \u200bthe geopolitical front, Qatar’s prime minister will visit Tehran \u200bto relaunch diplomacy after the U.S. \u200band Iran traded recriminations over Washington’s promise to increase economic pressure \u200con Tehran. <\/p>\n
Gold is considered a hedge against \u200bgeopolitical and economic risks, \u200bbut higher interest rates can diminish its appeal as it pays no interest. <\/p>\n
“The $4,700 area remains an important short-term barrier. Gold may need to consolidate within the $4,500\u2013$4,700 range \u200bbefore developing fresh momentum,” said \u200cLinh Tran, market analyst at XS.com. <\/p>\n
Spot silver gained 1.2% to $68.88, platinum rose \u200b0.9% to $1,844.78 and palladium firmed 0.2% to $1,331.50. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru; Editing \u200bby Rashmi Aich and Varun H K) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ashitha Shivaprasad Aug 27 (Reuters) – Gold prices drifted higher on Thursday as so-called dollar debasement fears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4318,5275,42,168658,118946,270138,43,16540,40,38,41,39,6978],"class_list":["post-597366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-federal-reserve","tag-gold-prices","tag-headlines","tag-kelvin-wong","tag-kevin-warsh","tag-market-analyst","tag-news","tag-spot-gold","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-u-s-treasury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597366","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=597366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}