By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Gold was down on Wednesday morning in Asia and was near the one-week low hit during the previous session. U.S. Treasury yields climbed to two-year highs as expectations for a quicker-than-expected interest rate hike mount.
Gold futures inched down 0.07% to $1,811.05 by 10:56 PM ET (3:56 AM GMT), after hitting a one-week low of $1,805 an ounce on Tuesday.
The dollar, which normally moves inversely to gold, inched down on Wednesday, and benchmark U.S. Treasury yields hit two-year highs on Tuesday.
Investors are bracing for the U.S. Federal Reserve’s next policy decision, due to be handed down on Jan. 26. The central bank is expected to take more aggressive measures to curb persistently high levels of inflation.
Central banks in Indonesia, Malaysia, Norway, Turkey, and Ukraine will hand down their policy decisions on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Tuesday’s U.S. NY Empire State manufacturing index fell to 0.70 in January while housing data, including building permits, is due later in the day.
Across the Atlantic, the U.K. will release its consumer and producer price index figures later in the day.
Elsewhere in Europe, economists polled by Reuters predicted that eurozone inflation will be much higher than expected throughout 2022, compared with expectations in December 2021. This could pressure the European Central Bank to tighten monetary policy once the spread of the omicron COVID-19 variant subsides.
In Asia Pacific, Australian data showed that the Westpac Consumer Sentiment index contracted 2% in January, compared to the 1% contraction from the previous month. In neighboring New Zealand, electronic card retail sales grew 0.4% month-on-month and 4.2% year-on-year in December 2021.
In other precious metals, silver was steady at $23.44 an ounce, platinum was down 0.3% and palladium was little changed at $1,896.83.