By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Gold was down on Wednesday morning in Asia as the dollar strengthened and U.S. Treasury yields rose. The focus will also be on the latest U.S. jobs report, due later in the week.
Gold futures were up 0.32% to $1,755.30 by 12:38 AM ET (4:38 AM GMT). The dollar, which usually moves inversely to gold, edged up on Wednesday and remained near its highs for 2021, while the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yield ticked upwards.
The jobs report, including non-farm payrolls, is due on Friday and will be critical in determining the U.S. Federal Reserve’s timeline to begin asset tapering.
Supply bottlenecks are continuing to drive most of the recent increase in inflation and will subside, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said on Tuesday. He added that the Fed is close to beginning asset tapering.
The U.S. services purchasing managers index (PMI) was 54.9 for September, while the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) non-manufacturing PMI was 61.9, according to data released on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Perth Mint’s sales of gold products in September jumped about 83% to their highest level since April 2021, and silver sales rose nearly 23%.
The National Bank of Poland could buy another 100 tons of gold for its reserves in 2022, governor Adam Glapinski said on Tuesday.
In Asia Pacific, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand handed down its policy decision earlier in the day, where it hiked interest rates to 0.50% from the previous month’s 0.25%. The Reserve Bank of India will hand down its decision on Friday.
In other precious metals, silver dropped 0.4% and palladium was down 0.3%, while platinum eased 0.2% to $960.11.