Gold is heading for weekly gains with the dollar’s decline

Gold prices rose on Friday, with continued dollar weakness, which helped move the yellow metal towards recording its second consecutive weekly rise, as expectations of a stronger monetary policy tightening from the Federal Reserve ebbed.

Spot gold rose 0.2 percent to $1,854.05 an ounce by 0325 GMT. US gold futures also rose 0.2 percent to $1,851.90. Gold rose 0.4% since the beginning of the week.

“Gold was supported this week by some moderation in market expectations from the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy for the next year, and most importantly by the weakness of the US dollar,” said Ilya Spivak, currency analyst at Daily Forex.

The Federal Reserve’s May 3 and 4 monetary policy meeting minutes, released on Wednesday, highlighted that most participants favor a 50 basis point rate hike at the June and July meetings, as the market expected.

Higher interest rates and US bond yields increase the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding gold.

The dollar index fell, heading for the second consecutive weekly decline, which makes gold less expensive for buyers of other currencies.

As for other precious metals, silver fell in spot transactions 0.2 percent to $21.95 an ounce. It has risen about 1.5 percent this week.

Platinum settled almost at 950.28 dollars. And palladium rose 0.1 percent to $ 2015.96, and is moving towards achieving a weekly gain of about three percent, the highest since early April.