No let up from dollar, US yield squeeze

A sea of red across most equity markets and no end in sight to the rise in the dollar and US bond yields is the backdrop to what is likely to be another nervy session in Asia on Tuesday.

As if that wasn’t reason enough for investors to keep their guard up, US CPI inflation data will be released the following day, when the fourth quarter US earnings season kicks off too.

The S&P 500’s fall on Monday at one point wiped out all the index’s post-US election gains. Although it managed to close off those lows, there is no doubt that high and rising US bond yields continue to weigh heavily on wider equity market sentiment.

The global backdrop isn’t helping either, amid swirling trade tensions and uncertainty surrounding the new incoming US administration ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration next week.

On that front, the Biden administration’s announcement on Monday of new US export restrictions on artificial intelligence chips will only deepen the unease.

The new regulations, among the toughest yet from Washington and designed to limit the global distribution of these coveted processors, could deal a significant blow to the earnings of AI and tech firms, including Nvidia.

The dollar on Monday rose to a fresh 26-month high, a further tightening of financial conditions that will be felt in domestic US markets but especially in overseas asset prices.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs on Friday raised their dollar forecasts to include the euro falling below parity with the dollar within the next three to six months. With the euro slipping below USD 1.02 on Monday it wouldn’t be a shock if the parity break comes in the next six weeks.

The dollar has started the week on a strong footing. It has risen 14 out of the last 15 weeks, a remarkable run that has seen it appreciate 10% against its major G10 rivals. Emerging and Asian economies continue to feel the squeeze from dollar and Treasury yields.

Tuesday’s calendar in Asia is light, with Australian consumer confidence, Indian factory gate inflation figures, and the latest Japanese trade and current account numbers the main events.

Japan’s yen remains under heavy selling pressure around 158 per dollar, close to the 160/dollar area that has previously prompted yen-buying intervention from Japanese authorities.

Policy decisions in Indonesia and South Korea, and a raft of Chinese economic indicators, should be the local catalysts for more market fireworks later in the week.

The annual Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong continues. Speakers on Tuesday include the chairman of Alibaba, the managing director of China International Capital Corporation Limited, and CIOs at several major global investment funds.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Tuesday:

– Japan trade, current account (November)

– India wholesale price inflation (December)

– Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Himino Ryozo speaks

(Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Deepa Babington)

Hedge funds increased bearish bets ahead of Friday’s blowout US jobs report, banks say

NEW YORK – Global hedge funds added more bets against US stocks over the last week through Jan 9, ahead of a blowout US jobs report that sparked a sell-off on Wall Street, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs said in notes on Friday.

The US Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday showed job growth accelerated to 256,000 jobs in December, the most since March, while the unemployment fell to 4.1%.

The hotter-than-expected jobs data sent stocks spiralling, sending the S&P 500 down 1.54% on Friday and erasing all its 2025 gains.

Morgan Stanley said portfolio managers increased shorts – or bets stocks will fall – in sectors such as staples, software, financials and healthcare in the days ahead of the jobs report, while they sold long positions in communication services.

Still, the bank said hedge funds bought European and Asian stocks over the same period.

Goldman Sachs also said short positions outpaced long additions to portfolios, but it saw this trend in all regions, led by North America and Europe.

“We’ve seen a rotation where managers have been taking profits, selling their longs, and then adding to shorts,” said Jon Caplis, CEO of hedge fund research firm PivotalPath. He said the move is also related to the Federal Reserve’s more hawkish take on interest rate cuts and big data releases, such as the consumer price index on Wednesday.

One exception was the technology, media, and telecommunications sector (TMT), Goldman Sachs said, as hedge funds added it at the fastest pace in three months.

Stocks in the technology sector were among the hardest hit on Friday, down 2.23%, behind financials and real estate. Big tech companies start to report earnings after Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan 20.

As two of the biggest global prime brokers, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley track the portfolios of their hedge fund clients to indicate positioning and flow trends.

(Reporting by Carolina Mandl, in New York; editing by Diane Craft)

Gold rebounds on Trump policy uncertainty despite robust US jobs data

Gold prices rebounded on Friday as uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration’s policies lifted safe-haven appeal, even as a stronger-than-expected US employment data reinforced expectations the Federal Reserve might not cut interest rates as aggressively this year.

Spot gold was up 0.6% at USD 2,686.24 per ounce as of 01:57 p.m. EST (1857 GMT), while US gold futures settled 0.9% higher at USD 2,715.00.

Gold prices briefly slipped to USD 2,663.09 an ounce after data showed the US added 256,000 jobs last month, compared with economists’ estimate of a rise of 160,000. The unemployment rate stood at 4.1%, compared with a forecast of 4.2%.

Bullion prices, however, quickly rebounded and hit their highest levels since Dec. 12, poised for a weekly gain of more than 1.7%.

“Gold’s price action points to a lack of committed sellers of the metal; a diffidence well-learned from last year’s remarkable rise,” said Tai Wong, an independent metals trader.

“The momentum from the knee-jerk reaction faded quickly and the short-term traders and programs that sold reversed quickly.”

The dollar rallied while US stock futures fell sharply after the jobs data. Markets show traders now expect the Fed to cut interest rates by just 30 basis points over the course of this year, compared with cuts worth about 45 basis points before the data.

“Gold is still acting resilient in the face of a much stronger-than-expected jobs report … One of the factors that’s been supporting gold is this uncertainty that we’ve seen going into the (US presidential) inauguration,” said David Meger, director of metals trading at High Ridge Futures.

As President-elect Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration approaches, investors are anxious about his vow to impose tariffs on a wide range of imports, fearing they could fuel inflation and further limit the Fed’s ability to lower rates.

While bullion is prized as a safeguard against inflation, high interest rates dull its allure as a non-yielding asset.

Spot silver gained 0.9% to USD 30.38 per ounce, platinum fell 0.2% to USD 959.10 and palladium added 2.2% to USD 943.93. All three metals were headed for weekly gains.

(Reporting by Anjana Anil, Ashitha Shivaprasad, Swati Verma, and Daksh Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Paul Simao and Tasim Zahid)

Oil prices rally 3% as US hits Russian oil with tougher sanctions

Oil prices rallied nearly 3% to their highest in three months on Friday as traders braced for supply disruptions from the broadest US sanctions package targeting Russian oil and gas revenue.

President Joe Biden’s administration imposed fresh sanctions targeting Russian oil producers, tankers, intermediaries, traders, and ports, aiming to hit every stage of Moscow’s oil production and distribution chains.

Brent crude futures settled at USD 79.76 a barrel, up USD 2.84, or 3.7%, after crossing USD 80 a barrel for the first time since Oct.7.

US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose USD 2.65, or 3.6%, to settle at USD 76.57 per barrel, also a three-month high.

At their session high, both contracts were up more than 4% after traders in Europe and Asia circulated an unverified document detailing the sanctions.

Sources in Russian oil trade and Indian refining told Reuters the sanctions would severely disrupt Russian oil exports to its major buyers India and China.

“India and China (are) scrambling right now to find alternatives,” Anas Alhajji, managing partner at Energy Outlook Advisors, said in a video posted to social network X.

The sanctions will cut Russian oil export volumes and make them more expensive, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

Their timing, just a few days before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, makes it likely that Trump will keep the sanctions in place and use them as a negotiating tool for a Ukraine peace treaty, Staunovo added.

Oil prices were also buoyed as extreme cold in the US and Europe has lifted demand for heating oil, Alex Hodes, analyst at brokerage firm StoneX, said.

“We have several customers in the New York Harbor that have been seeing an uptick in heating oil demand,” Hodes said. “We have seen a bid in other heating fuels as well,” he added.

US ultra-low sulfur diesel futures, previously called the heating oil contract, rose 5.1% to settle at USD 105.07 per barrel, the highest since July.

“We anticipate a significant year-over-year increase in global oil demand of 1.6 million barrels a day in the first quarter of 2025, primarily boosted by … demand for heating oil, kerosene, and LPG,” JPMorgan analysts said in a note on Friday.

(Reporting by Shariq Khan; Additional reporting by Anna Hirtenstein, Enes Tunagur, and Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by David Goodman and Frances Kerry, Kirsten Donovan, Deepa Babington, Louise Heavens, and David Gregorio)

Sinking US equity risk premium rings alarms: McGeever

ORLANDO, Florida – Theory suggests that the divergence in value between US stocks and bonds will eventually get so extreme that investors will need to reduce their exposure to ultra-pricey equities and start loading up on beaten-down Treasuries. If the so-called US ‘equity risk premium’ (ERP) can be considered a useful indicator, that point may soon be upon us.

The ERP can be measured in various ways, but it is essentially the difference between the earnings yield on the S&P 500 index and the 10-year Treasury yield. In ‘normal’ times the ERP should be positive, offering investors a reasonable premium for holding stocks over ‘risk-free’ government debt.

These are not normal times though. Long-term bond yields are soaring even though the Federal Reserve has begun to cut interest rates, as sticky inflation and Washington’s worrisome debt and spending trajectory are rattling investors.

Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence frenzy and ‘US exceptionalism’ narrative led by a handful of Mega Cap tech stocks have fueled a boom on Wall Street that has lifted aggregate valuations to their highest level in years – or even decades by some measures.

As a result, the ERP is collapsing. By some gauges, it is the lowest in almost a quarter of a century, and has even slipped into negative territory. If the 10-year Treasury yield continues rising, the ERP is liable to shrink even further.

So stocks look expensive, nominally and relative to bonds, but does that mean it’s time to hit sell?

AMBER TO GREEN

This situation is ringing alarms for many equity strategists. Societe Generale’s team calculates that a tick up in the 10-year yield to 5.00% would push the ERP into “unhealthy territory” although probably wouldn’t cause much pain in the S&P 500. They argue the “buy” signal for bonds will flash brighter when the Treasury yield approaches nominal trend growth, currently around 5.2%.

“We believe this should be the anchor point for the bond scare on the growth outlook and the point where US bonds become fundamentally appealing,” they wrote this week.

The 10-year yield hit 4.79% on Friday, the highest since November 2023, and more than 100 basis points higher than when the Fed started lowering its policy rate in September.

Of course, there is no one trigger to buy stocks or bonds, far less a specific number or single relative value metric. Portfolio adjustment is a complex and often lengthy deliberation, and investors currently have to navigate a host of unknown variables like the incoming Trump administration’s trade policies and the Fed’s next steps.

What’s more, the ERP can send different signals depending on what’s driving it and the wider macroeconomic context.

UNSUSTAINABLE

In March 2009, the ERP soared to a historic high of 7% as bond yields were flattened near zero after the collapse of Lehman Brothers six months earlier. March 2009 turned out to be the stock market low, with the S&P 500 bottoming out at an eerie 666 points.

Similarly, the ERP spike towards 6% in April 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was fueled by the collapse in Treasury yields and also signaled the equity market low.

The consensus opinion today is that the recent decline in the ERP is primarily being driven by the yield spike, suggesting bonds are becoming attractive on a relative value basis.

Investors tend to like nice round numbers, so a 10-year bond yield of 5.00% would likely draw in some buyers, but portfolio managers may be hesitant to go all in, given the current uncertainty surrounding US fiscal and monetary policy.

As Unlimited’s Bob Elliott notes, it is an unsustainable divergence – either yields need to fall enough to justify existing equity prices, or stocks need to fall to reflect higher rates.

The “buy bonds” and “sell stocks” signals may be flashing amber, but determining when they will turn to green remains a challenge.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)

(By Jamie McGeever; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Hot US jobs data stoke yield fire, scold stocks

If the reaction in US stocks, bonds and the dollar to Friday’s sizzling US employment report is any guide, Asian markets are in for a bumpy ride on Monday, rocked by another whoosh higher in bond yields and inflation fears.

The US economy created over a quarter of a million net new jobs and the unemployment rate fell last month, reflecting a robust labor market. That’s good news. But the bad news for asset markets, especially in emerging and Asian economies, is the impact on borrowing costs and the dollar.

Treasury yields surged to the highest in over a year, the dollar hit a two-year peak, and traders are now only predicting one quarter-point rate cut from the Fed this year, in September.

The S&P 500 fell to its lowest since November 5, the day of the US presidential election, and it looks like soaring bond yields could crush investors’ appetite for risky assets like stocks.

Japanese futures are pointing to a fall of more than 1% at the open in Tokyo on Monday, and it will be a similar story around the continent.

Sentiment is already fragile, as the explosive rise in long-term bond yields has tightened financial conditions everywhere. According to Goldman Sachs, aggregate emerging market financial conditions are the tightest since late 2023.

Uncertainty over the potential hit to growth in Asia – especially China – from the incoming Trump administration’s ‘America First’ trade policies is another reason to be cautious if not outright bearish.

Trade figures from China on Monday are unlikely to lift the gloom. Economists polled by Reuters expect export growth accelerated in December while imports contracted for a third straight month.

December’s import figures are likely to garner more attention as they reflect the strength of domestic demand, and can therefore perhaps be seen as an early sign of how successful Beijing’s stimulus efforts have been.

The trade figures are the first clutch of top-tier indicators from China this week which include house prices, retail sales, industrial production, investment, unemployment and culminate on Friday with fourth-quarter and full-year GDP.

Investors will also assess the People’s Bank of China’s announcement on Friday that it has suspended treasury bond purchases, spurring speculation it is stepping up defense of the yuan. Will this be enough to put a floor under yields and the yuan?

The annual Asian Economic Forum opens in Hong Kong, and among the speakers on Monday are Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive Eddie Yue, China Investment Corp’s CIO Liu Haoling, and European Central Bank board member Philip Lane.

Meanwhile, Indian inflation on Monday is expected to show that the annual rate cooled slightly in December to 5.3% from 5.5% in November.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Monday:

– China trade (December)

– India CPI inflation (December)

– Asia Economic Forum

(Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Diane Craft)

Yields dip as Trump policies stay in focus

NEW YORK – Treasury yields eased on Thursday following a sharp selloff that sent 10-year yields to a more than eight-month high on Wednesday as traders evaluated the likely economic impact of policies proposed by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Business deregulation and tax cuts are likely to boost US growth while a crackdown on illegal immigration and tariffs is seen as potentially fanning inflation. The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, is expected to be more cautious in cutting interest rates as it watches the economic impact of the changes.

With considerable uncertainty over what policies exactly Trump will introduce, traders are pricing in much stronger growth as the default option, said Thomas Simons, US economist at Jefferies in New York.

“We can’t predict how it’s going to go wrong,” he said. “So you’re left with this only path forward that is – well, I guess it means we’re going to have more growth, it means we’re going to have more inflation, it means that the Fed is probably not going to cut as much.”

The US government is also expected to increase debt auction sizes this year if the budget deficit continues to worsen, as is widely expected for the foreseeable future, and as it balances its debt maturity profile to rely less on shorter-dated bills.

Fed Governor Michelle Bowman and Boston Fed President
Susan Collins on Thursday both expressed taking a cautious approach to further rate cuts.

Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid also signaled a reluctance to cut interest rates again while Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said he still expects the US central bank to cut interest rates, but added that any sort of imminent move down isn’t needed.

Thursday’s pause in the bond selloff came before jobs data on Friday, which is expected to show that employers added 160,000 jobs during the month.

Trading volumes were also light as the US bond market closed early in honor of former President Jimmy Carter.

Interest rate-sensitive two-year note yields fell 2.3 basis points on the day to 4.268%.

Benchmark 10-year yields fell 0.2 basis points to 4.691%. They peaked at 4.73% on Wednesday, the highest since April 25.

The yield curve between two-year and 10-year notes steepened two basis points to 42.1 basis points, after reaching 42.9 basis points on Wednesday, the steepest since May 2022.

Thirty-year Treasury yields were flat at 4.932%, after reaching 4.968% on Wednesday, the highest since November 2023.

(Reporting by Karen Brettell; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Deepa Babington)

Oil settles up 1% as cold weather in US, Europe drives winter fuel demand

HOUSTON – Oil prices rose more than 1% on Thursday as cold weather gripped parts of the United States and Europe, boosting winter fuel demand.

Brent crude futures settled up 76 cents, or 1%, at USD 76.92 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled up 60 cents, or 0.82%, to USD 73.92.

On Wednesday, both benchmarks fell more than 1%.

Thursday’s rise is “definitely winter fuel demand kicking in here in the US,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York.

Parts of east Texas up to west Virginia were under a winter storm warning on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service, covering large swathes of Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Ultra-low sulfur diesel futures were trading at around USD 2.38 a gallon, their highest since Oct. 8, according to data from LSEG.

JP Morgan analysts estimate that for the United States, Europe and Japan, for every degree Fahrenheit the temperature drops below its 10-year average, there is an increase of 113,000 barrels per day (bpd) in demand for heating oil and propane “as teeth-chattering temperatures prompt consumers to crank up their heat.”

Extreme winter conditions can lead to disruptions in oil supplies as freezing temperatures may cause temporary freeze-offs and production cuts, JP Morgan analysts said.

“Right now it appears that the ice will stay north of refinery row along the US Gulf Coast, but power outages will be a concern as heavy rain and wind comes along for the ride,” TACenergy’s trading desk wrote on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the market structure in Brent futures is indicating that traders are becoming more concerned about supply tightening at the same time demand is increasing.

The premium of the front-month Brent contract over the six-month contract reached its widest since August on Wednesday. A widening of this backwardation, when futures for prompt delivery are higher than for later delivery, typically indicates that supply is declining or demand is increasing.

US President Joe Biden is expected to announce new sanctions targeting Russia’s economy this week, according to a US official. The administration is trying to bolster Ukraine’s war effort against Russia before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. A key target of sanctions so far has been Russia’s oil industry.

The dollar strengthened further on Thursday.

Looking ahead, WTI crude oil is expected to oscillate within a range of USD 67.55 to USD 77.95 into February as the market awaits more clarity on Trump’s planned policies and fiscal stimulus from China, OANDA senior market analyst Kelvin Wong said.

(Reporting by Georgina McCartney in Houston, Paul Carsten in London, Yuka Obayashi, and Trixie Yap; Editing by David Goodman, Frances Kerry, David Gregorio, and Mark Porter)

Dollar climbs for 3rd straight session, sterling weakness continues

NEW YORK – The US dollar strengthened for a third straight session on Thursday as Treasury yields dipped but held at elevated levels on concerns over tariffs under the incoming Trump administration, while sterling’s recent weakness persisted.

US Treasury yields have been on an uptrend, with the benchmark 10-year note hitting an 8-1/2 month high of 4.73% on Wednesday as a resilient economy and likely tariffs have rekindled inflation concerns and heightened expectations the Federal Reserve will take a slower path of interest rate cuts.

Recent economic data has shown a labor market on a solid footing and minutes from the Fed’s December meeting showed that policymakers raised new inflation concerns suggesting the new administration’s plans may slow economic growth and increase unemployment.

Investors will eye Friday’s key government payrolls report to gauge how aggressive the central bank will be in cutting interest rates.

“Most of the economic readings that have come in have been a little stronger than expected so if we get a non-farm payrolls tomorrow that is stronger than what’s expected that’s another indicator that the economy is not cooling off and that inflation is going to get more pressures,” said Joseph Trevisani, senior analyst at FX Street in New York.

“We’re also going to get the Trump administration which is going to change all sorts of things,” Trevisani added.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.12% to 109.15, with the euro down 0.16% at USD 1.0301.

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Susan Collins said on Thursday that significant uncertainty over the outlook calls for the central bank to move forward cautiously with future rate cuts while Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Patrick Harker said he still expects rate cuts, but any sort of imminent move down is not needed amid considerable uncertainty over the economic outlook.

In addition, Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeff Schmid said he believes rates are near the point where the economy needs “neither restriction nor support,” while Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said the incoming administration’s future policies should not be prejudged.

Sterling weakened 0.46% to USD 1.2306, on track for a third straight session of declines after hitting its lowest level since Nov. 13, 2023 with Britain’s finance minister under pressure as concerns over Trump’s policies have pushed the British government’s borrowing costs higher.

Bank of England Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden said a rate cut was supported by recent evidence, although it was difficult to know how quickly.

Erik Nelson, macro strategist at Wells Fargo sees a risk of continued underperformance in the pound while UK gilt yields begin to turn lower.

The Japanese yen strengthened 0.17% to 158.06 per dollar. Government data on Thursday showed Japan’s inflation-adjusted real wages fell for the fourth straight month in November, weighed down by higher prices even as base pay grew at the fastest pace in more than three decades.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs believe the discussions at the January branch managers meeting support their view of a January rate hike from the Bank of Japan.

The US stock market was closed on Thursday. US bond markets were set for an early close for former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Alexander Smith and Diane Craft)

Treasury yields fall, dollar strengthens with investors weighing Fed moves

NEW YORK/LONDON – US Treasury yields retreated from an eight-month high on Thursday while the dollar strengthened against major currencies, as investors reevaluated the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy for 2025 as the US economy shows signs of resilience.

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield fell 0.45 basis points to 4.689%. It had hit a peak of 4.73% on Wednesday, the highest since April 2024. The pound is headed for its biggest three-day drop in nearly two years.

A selloff in global bonds in recent weeks and worries about Britain’s economy has kept the pound under pressure and also has hit gilts especially hard, driving yields to 16-1/2-year highs.

On Friday, the closely watched US monthly payrolls report will provide clues on the Fed’s policy outlook. Markets are fully pricing in just one 25-basis-point US rate cut in 2025.

“Yields have come down a little bit heading into the payroll number on Friday and it’s indicative of where the level of concern is, which is that maybe the move in yields has been overdone,” said Drew Matus, chief market strategist at MetLife Investment Management in New Jersey.

Minutes of the Fed’s December policy meeting released on Wednesday showed officials were concerned President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs and immigration policies may prolong the fight against inflation.

A market selloff in Treasuries continued on Wednesday after a CNN report that Trump was considering declaring a national economic emergency to provide a legal justification for a series of universal levies on allies and adversaries.

US stock markets were closed on Thursday to mark the funeral of former US president Jimmy Carter. US bond markets closed early at 2 p.m. ET (1900 GMT).

“I put the fair value 10-year yield at 4.50% and yet we’re still at 4.66% heading into a report that will either show continuing strength in the labor market, in which case the rate cuts aren’t the right thing to be doing, or show labor weakness and will ratify the Fed’s view of the world against the backdrop of inflation that remains elevated and a high degree of uncertainty in policy and economic outcomes,” Matus said.

European shares finished higher after paring early losses. Gains in healthcare and basic materials stocks were partially offset by declines in retailers. The pan-European STOXX 600 closed up 0.42%.

The US dollar index traded just under 109.54, a level it hit last week for the first time since November 2022. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, rose 0.12% to 109.15, with the euro down 0.18% at USD 1.0299.

Sterling was last down 0.44% at USD 1.2307, having touched its lowest since November 2023 earlier in the day.

China’s yuan steadied near a 16-month low against the dollar as the nation’s central bank announced a record amount of offshore yuan bill sales to support the currency.

Oil prices settled up more than 1% as cold weather gripped parts of the US and Europe, boosting winter fuel demand.

Brent crude futures settled up 1% at USD 76.92 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled up 0.82% to USD 73.92.

Gold prices advanced to a near four-week high, backed by safe-haven demand. Spot gold rose 0.27% to USD 2,669.38 an ounce, trading near its highest level since mid-December. US gold futures rose 0.77% to USD 2,685.00 an ounce.

(Reporting by Nell Mackenzie in London and Chibuike Oguh in New York; Editing by Mark Potter, Chris Reese, Alexander Smith, and David Gregorio)

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