Gold prices hover near record high post US Fed minutes

Gold prices regained lost ground on Wednesday to hover close to their all-time highs after minutes from the US Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed officials strongly leaned towards an interest rate cut at their September policy meeting.

Spot gold was up 0.1% at USD 2,516.01 per ounce as of 2:42 p.m. ET (1842 GMT) after hitting a record high of USD 2,531.60 on Tuesday.

US gold futures settled 0.1% lower at USD 2,547.50.

“Gold is closing at the highs after Fed minutes indicated that ‘a vast majority’ of the committee was prepared to cut rates in September,” said Tai Wong, a New York-based independent metals trader.

“I am cautiously optimistic because all the market-friendly news is already out there. Gold is likely to grind higher but unlikely to accelerate aggressively without an unforeseen event driver.”

At the July meeting, “the vast majority” of policymakers “observed that, if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting,” according to the minutes.

Following the Fed minutes, the dollar extended losses to a more than seven-month low, while benchmark US 10-year bond yields fell to a more than two-week low. USD/ US/

Market’s focus will now turn to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s keynote speech at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday.

Elsewhere, spot silver rose 0.6% to USD 29.61 per ounce. Platinum gained 2.6% to USD 970.75 and palladium rose 2.7% to USD 951.00, its highest level in over a month.

“There has been more interest in PGMs as the fundamentals are expected to improve, so prices started to move higher, and particularly palladium investors needed to cover their shorts,” said Bart Melek, head of commodity strategies at TD Securities.

The auto-catalyst metals also got a lift after Ford Motor said it was killing a planned three-row electric SUV and pushing back a new electric version of its best-selling pickup, the F-150.

Both platinum and palladium are used by automakers in catalytic converters to clean car exhaust fumes.

(Reporting by Anushree Mukherjee, Brijesh Patel, and Sherin Elizabeth Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid and Shailesh Kuber)