Investing.com – Gold prices remained close to four-month highs on Wednesday amid expectations the precious metal would likely ‘shrug off’ rate hike worries while dollar weakness limited downside.
Gold futures for February delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell by $1.60, or 0.12%, to $1,335.50 a troy ounce.
“We expect gold will shrug off worries of fundamental downside amidst the unwind of accommodative central bank policy, and that the market premium over fair value will widen,” Deutsche Bank said.
The bank forecasts gold for 2018 at $1,283 an ounce, which takes into account market expectations of four Fed rate hikes and modest dollar weakness.
In a rising interest rate environment, investor appetite for gold weakens as the opportunity cost of holding the precious metal increases relative to other interest-nearing assets such as bonds.
The positive sentiment on the precious metal was supported by data showing traders continued to increased their bullish bets on gold for the fourth-straight week.
Speculative net long position in gold rose by 40,000 contracts to a net long 203,300 contracts, a six-week high, according to the most recent Commitment of Traders (COT) report.
In other precious metal trade, silver futures fell 0.20% to $17.16 a troy ounce, while platinum futures rose 0.59% to $1010.80.
Copper fell 0.98% to $3.19, while natural gas rose 4.06% to $3.26.