Investing.com – Gold prices slipped on Wednesday amid a steady dollar and firmer equities.
Gold futures for August delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell by $2.70 or 0.2%, to $1,275.90 a troy ounce by 1:13AM ET (05:13 GMT).
Regional sentiments recovered somewhat with Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.6% and South Korea’s KOSPI advanced 1.1%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index also climbed 0.5%.
Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said in an interview with the Shanghai Securities News that policymakers are prepared for outside shocks, and called for investors to stay calm. The central bank is ready to utilise monetary policy following the standoff to stabilise the nation’s stock markets, he added.
“We’ll be forward-looking, prepare relevant policies, and comprehensively use all kinds of monetary policy tools,” Yi said. Stock market turbulence is “mostly driven by sentiment,” he said, adding that China has “room to face all sorts of trade friction.”
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un met in Beijing this week and came to an understanding on various issues, including denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, North Korea’s state media said on Wednesday.
Kim’s two-day visit to Beijing, which followed his Singapore summit last week, would end later today, the state media added.
The market has gone into risk-off mode this week after the announcement of the possible new 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion Chinese goods and an angry reply from Beijing saying that “the United States has initiated a trade war and violated market regulations and is harming the interests of not just the people of China and the U.S., but of the world.”
The dollar gained slightly on Wednesday morning trade in Asia as yields on U.S. treasures bounced off lows.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, was up 0.11% to 94.75.
Dollar-denominated assets such as gold are sensitive to moves in the dollar – A rise in the dollar makes gold more expensive for holders of foreign currency and thus, reduces demand for the precious metal.
In other precious metal trade, silver futures fell 0.73% to $16.320 a troy ounce, while platinum futures fell 0.71% at $862.20 an ounce.