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Gold climbed higher on Wednesday after hotter-than-expected US inflation fueled expectations that the Federal Reserve will maintain a path of aggressive interest-rate hikes.
Spot gold gained 0.8% to $1,853.84 per ounce by 12:20 p.m. ET, but is still tracking lower on a weekly basis. US gold futures were 0.6% higher at $1,851.60 per ounce.
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According to Labor Department data released Wednesday, the core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.6% from a month earlier and 6.2% from April 2021, exceeding the median forecasts of economists.
The broader CPI rose 0.3% from the prior month and 8.3% on an annual basis, a slight cooling but still among the highest readings in decades.
Treasury yields spiked following the print, while the US dollar initially rallied before giving up its gains.
“The market saw the print and went ‘SELL, SELL, SELL.’ But gold has since bounced back with the thinking that the data is higher than expected, but not horrifying,” Tai Wong, an independent metals trader in New York, told Reuters.
“The Fed won’t get more hawkish with this report, but definitely won’t ease off either,” Wong added.
“After investors digested the latest inflation report, the overall takeaway is that it still won’t change Fed policy over the short-term and considering how bad gold has been beaten up over the past few weeks, prices appear to be finding some support here,” Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, wrote in a Bloomberg note.
Bullion has been under pressure as the Fed tightened monetary policy to fight accelerating consumer-price gains. That helped push bond yields higher and has propelled a gauge of the US currency up around 6% since the end of March, weighing on gold.
(With files from Bloomberg and Reuters)
