By Swati Verma
(Reuters) – Gold prices on Monday firmed above last session’s more than three-month low, as concerns surrounding the political turmoil in Russia drove flows into safe-haven bullion, outweighing risks from the Federal Reserve’s hawkish outlook.
Spot gold was up 0.1% at $1,923.61 per ounce by 10:26 a.m. EDT (1426 GMT), while gold futures gained 0.2% to $1,933.90.
“We are seeing some modest safe-haven demand in gold on the Russian incursion that was quickly aborted over the weekend. But there are still some underlying worries,” said Jim Wyckoff, senior analyst at Kitco.
“The marketplace wonders what’s going to happen next because the Russian military appears to be destabilising. Putin appears to see his power weakening, and that has major implications around the world.”
Heavily armed Russian mercenaries withdrew from the southern Russian city of Rostov on Sunday, while authorities were still investigating the mercenary leader whose weekend mutiny appeared to be a major threat to the President Vladimir Putin’s 23-year-old rule.
“This new geopolitical set of headlines has helped to give gold some minor buoyancy and the return of China (from Dragon Boat holidays) to the market is almost undoubtedly adding some support,” said StoneX analyst Rhona O’Connell.
Bullion slumped nearly 2% in the previous week and touched its lowest since mid-March on Friday as hawkish comments from Fed officials signalled more rate hikes to tame sticky inflation.
High interest rates discourage investing in non-yielding gold, which is otherwise seen as a safe investment amid economic uncertainties.
Spot silver climbed 1.5% to $22.76 per ounce, while platinum rose 0.9% to $926.21.
Palladium jumped 2.4% to $1,316.22, after having slid to a four-year low last week.
But stagnant growth in China and acceleration of battery electric vehicles could curb palladium autocatalyst demand and push the price lower, Heraeus analysts wrote in a note.
(Reporting by Swati Verma and Deep Vakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
