Gold prices dipped at the end of last week’s trading, to close at USD 1,889 per ounce, down by 1.5 percent, recording losses for the fourth week in a row, an economic report said Sunday.
Gold prices remained below USD 1,900 an ounce last Friday, affected by the strength of the dollar and US Treasury bond yields, while the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the US, meeting last July indicated more interest rate hikes in the future due to the risk of higher inflation, the Kuwaiti-based company Dar Al-Sabaek said in a report.
Gold futures for December delivery stabilized at the end of trading last Friday at USD 1,916.5 an ounce, however recorded weekly losses of about 1.5 percent, it explained, pointing to market expectations to keep the Federal Reserve at the current range of interest until the end of this year.
The report suggested the possibility of monetary tightening in the US amid real estate sector turmoil, as the Chinese company Evergrande applied for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 15 in the US, amid its ongoing debt restructuring procedures in Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands.
The continuation of the real estate sector crisis, with the announcement of Hang Seng Index last Friday that the Chinese real estate company Country Garden will be removed from its index in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, starting from next September fourth, will increase the pressures facing the Chinese economy, and may reflect positively on gold in the upcoming sessions.
The markets are awaiting the statements that US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will make regarding his economic vision on August 25 during the meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole, it stated.
The anticipation also includes the meeting of the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) group this week and its efforts to break the West’s hegemony over the global economy by launching a unified currency among them that would end the dominance of the US dollar over the global economy, the report stated.
Regarding the local market, it indicated that the price of a 24-carat gram gold amounted to KD 18.870, and 22-carat amounted to KD 17.3, whereas the silver price was KD 271 per kilogram.
Source: Kuwait News Agency