Reuters
Gold prices dropped in the UAE and globally on Monday morning as the US dollar strengthened while investors were waiting for a series of major central bank policy meetings this week.
In the UAE, the 24K gold price fell half a dirham per gram at the opening of the markets on Monday, to trade at Dh237.0 per gram as compared to last week's close of Dh237.5 per gram.
Among the other variants of the precious metal, the 22K, 21K and 18K were trading at Dh219.5, Dh212.5 and Dh182.0 per gram, respectively.
Spot gold fell 0.3 per cent to $1,954.78 per ounce.
Zain Vawda, an analyst at dailyFX, said the precious metal fluctuated between the $1,940-$1,970 handles for the majority of the last week as continued repricing of rate hike probabilities for the US Federal Reserve weighed on gold's attempted recovery.
The yellow metal prices climbed 0.7 per cent last week, helped by a more than one per cent jump on Thursday after a jump in US weekly jobless claims.
“From a volatility perspective, market participants will no doubt welcome the heavy economic docket. The Federal Reserve remains quite split on the way forward with there likely to be intense debates and discussions on whether a pause or another 25bps hike is needed.
There have been small signs of late that the economy may be beginning to slow, however, wage growth remained steady at 0.3 per cent with an uptick in unemployment during the month of May,” said Vawda.
Investors are waiting for the release of the US consumer price index and producer price index data on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
ALSO READ:
Waheed Abbas is Assistant Editor, covering real estate, aviation and other business stories that dir...