Gold recovered from two-week lows

Gold strengthened on Tuesday, recovering some of the previous day’s losses that led the precious metal to a two-week low.

Rising interest rates as investors wait for the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy this year to tackle the inflation rally are the biggest threat to the attractiveness of gold as an alternative investment, analysts say.

Minneapolis Fed Chairman Neel Kashkari, citing rising inflation, said today that he expects the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates twice this year, abandoning its previous position that interest rates could remain flat. low by at least 2024.

The 10-year US yield climbed to 1.673% today from 1.628% on Monday. Analysts see a more than 50% chance that the Federal Reserve will make its first rate hike in 2018 in March, without ruling out even an aggressive 50 basis point increase instead of 25 basis points.

Against this background, the February gold delivery contract gained $ 14.50 or 0.8% and closed at $ 1,814.60 per ounce, after falling 1.6% on Monday.

Silver also made gains, with the March contract adding 25 cents, or 1.1%, to $ 23,056 an ounce after Monday’s dive of 2.3%. March copper rose 1.2% to $ 4,475 a pound.

As for the rest of the metals, April platinum strengthened by 1.8% and closed at $ 971.20 per ounce, while palladium for March climbed almost 1.9% to $ 1,859.70 per ounce.