Gold hits 3-week low on robust dollar, firmer yields

Oct 19 (Reuters) – Gold prices dropped over 1% to a three-week low on Wednesday as the US dollar and Treasury yields rose, further pressured by prospects of aggressive rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

Spot gold fell 1.5% to USD 1,627.81 per ounce by 1:41 p.m. ET (1741 GMT), after touching its lowest since Sept. 28 earlier in the session.

US gold futures settled down 1.3% at USD 1,634.2.

“The market continues to be quite worried about aggressive Federal Reserve monetary tightening,” said Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy at TD Securities.

“We’re gonna have a fairly steep run up in interest rates and probably not a very quick pivot, so gold market is responding (to that).”

Several Fed officials have reiterated the US central bank’s commitment to raise interest rates aggressively to battle surging inflation, with markets pricing in a 75-basis-point hike in November.

Although gold is seen as a hedge against inflation, rising interest rates increase the opportunity cost of holding the non-yielding asset.

“A drop below September’s low at (around) USD 1,615 looks very likely now, with USD 1,600 being the next target for the bears,” Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index, said in a note.

Making bullion more expensive for overseas buyers, the dollar rose 0.7%, while benchmark 10-year Treasury yields hit their highest since 2008.

“(Gold’s) three-month rolling correlation with other assets has strengthened too, namely with the S&P 500, bitcoin, Brent and with the VIX volatility index,” Standard Chartered said in a note dated Tuesday.

Meanwhile, spot silver dropped 2% to USD 18.38 per ounce.

Silver is well poised for a significant climb upwards but for the time being the downward pressure from large rate hikes by global central banks is keeping its price subdued, said Rupert Rowling, a market analyst at Kinesis Money, in a note.

Platinum fell 2.3% to USD 886.75 per ounce while palladium dropped 1.1% to USD 1,990.22.

(Reporting by Kavya Guduru in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Vinay Dwivedi)