By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com - Gold jumped its most in a month on Tuesday, rising nearly $40 an ounce on the day, as U.S. bond yields retreated from their relentless run higher, allowing the yellow metal to flex its muscle again as a hedge against price pressures.
Gold for April delivery on New York’s Comex settled up $38.90, or 2.3%, at $1,716.90 an ounce after rising to as high $1,718.60.
The benchmark gold futures contract had hit an 11-month low of $1,673.40 on Monday, sinking for a ninth time in 11 sessions.
The spot price of gold, which fund managers sometimes use more than futures to gauge direction, was up $34.24, or 2%, at $1,717.91 by 3:08 PM ET (20:08 GMT).
Spot gold sunk to a June bottom of $1,676.93 in the previous session. But on Tuesday, it got to as high as $1,720.68. If it maintained its trajectory above $1,720, spot gold could stage a recovery to mid-$1,700 levels and beyond, said technical analysts.
“The line in the sand was $1,650 for gold, so this emphatic rebound looks like it could hold,” said Ed Moya, senior markets strategist in New York for online brokerage OANDA.
Yields tied to the U.S. 10-year Treasury note fell for the first time in six sessions, dipping below their previous one-year highs of 1.6%. The slide resulted in a ramp up of not only gold but also depressed tech stocks on Wall Street’s Nasdaq.
Adding to gold’s wind on Tuesday was the unwinding of some long bets on its archrival, the dollar. The Dollar Index — which pits the greenback against six major currencies — fell 0.4% to 91.94.
Until Tuesday’s turnaround, gold was the worst performing commodity of 2021, losing as much as 11% on the year. Its 20% decline on Comex from an August 2020 record high of nearly $2,090 had also technically pushed gold into a bear market.
For decades, gold has been touted as the number one hedge against inflation, and appeared set to extend its highs just a few months ago from fiscal deficits and new debt in the trillions that the Biden administration is expected to accrue in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
But a spike in bond yields since the start of the year on bets of runaway economic recovery had instead suppressed non-yielding gold.