By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Gold was down on Thursday morning in Asia, remaining within a tight range. Investors now await the latest U.S. inflation data, which could offer further clues about the Federal Reserve's timeline for monetary policy tightening.
Gold futures inched down 0.08% to $1,835.05 by 11:55 PM ET (4:55 AM GMT), near Wednesday's high of $1,835.60. The dollar, which normally moves inversely to gold, inched up on Thursday, while Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields were off their November 2019 highs.
The U.S. data, which includes the consumer price index, is due later in the day.
Fed fund futures traders are already pricing in more than five 25 basis point interest rate hikes by December 2022, with a 27% chance that the first hike in March will be by 50 basis points. However, the Fed will have to move faster than it has in the past to remove accommodation and tame inflation that is well above target, but it may not be necessary to start hikes with a half-percentage point in March, according to Cleveland Fed Bank President Loretta Mester.
Bank of England governor Andrew will also speak later in the day.
Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe continue as Russian increased military capabilities along its border with Ukraine and Belarus, the U.S. Pentagon warned. Although Ukraine believes that the standoff between Western powers and Russia can be resolved via diplomacy, there are already grounds to impose sanctions on Russia, according to the country’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
In other precious metals, silver and platinum were down 0.3% while palladium was steady at $2,279.51.