Investing.com - Spot gold briefly lost its hold on $1,900 territory Tuesday before recapturing it as the resurgent dollar and Treasury yields brought their full weight to bear on bullion.
Gold’s most-active futures contract on New York’s Comex, December, settled down $16.80, or 0.9%, at $1,919.80 an ounce. The session low for December gold was $1,917.35.
The spot price of gold was down $15.64, or 0.8%, at $1,900.29 by 15:15 ET (19:15 GMT).
Spot gold, determined by real-time trades in physical bullion and more closely followed than futures by some traders, hit $1,899.21 at the session low, falling below $1,900 support.
“A move below $1,900 could be a very bearish move, at which point the August lows would be very interesting not too far away,” said Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading platform OANDA. “Of course, we could simply see further consolidation and we have seen some support today around $1,900 but it's certainly looking vulnerable.”
Spot gold fell to as low as $1,884.35 in August.
Gold prices have seen renewed weakness this month under the combined weight of Treasury yields, benchmarked to the U.S. 10-year note, and the dollar.
Yields shot to fresh 16-year highs on Tuesday, reaching peaks not seen since July 2007.
The Dollar Index got to highs not visited since November 2022. A stronger dollar typically discourages those holding other currencies from buying dollar
The two alternatives to gold surged since the Federal Reserve last week projected another quarter-percentage point rate increase by the year-end, despite leaving rates unchanged for September at a policy meeting on Wednesday.
Fed Chair Powell told a news conference last week that energy-driven inflation was one of the central bank’s bigger concerns.
“We are prepared to raise rates further, if appropriate," Powell said. "The fact that we decided to maintain the policy rate at this meeting doesn't mean we have decided that we have or have not at this time reached that stance of monetary policy that we are seeking."
The Fed had raised interest rates 11 times between February 2022 and July 2023, adding a total of 5.25 percentage points to a prior base rate of just 0.25%.
Economists fear that the Fed’s renewed hawkish stance will dampen global growth though many also agree that a lid has to be put on oil prices if the Fed is to achieve its annual inflation target of 2%.
(Ambar Warrick contributed to this item)