Gold prices pushed higher on Wednesday as a weaker U.S. dollar helped give the precious metal a boost.
Gold for February delivery was recently up 0.3% at $1,165.10 a troy ounce in electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The precious metal was little changed from the close of $1,165.30, as investors digested minutes from the Federal Reserve’s December meeting that cited uncertainty over policy in 2017.
A weaker dollar helped propel gold prices higher on Wednesday. The WSJ Dollar Index, which weighs the dollar against a basket of other currencies, was recently down 0.6%. Gold is priced in dollars and becomes cheaper for foreign buyers when the U.S. currency weakens.
After raising interest rates in December, Fed officials said they expect to raise interest rates by a further 0.75 percentage point over the course of 2017.
At the latest meeting, minutes released Wednesday show that officials noted that effect of the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump and new policy is still unclear. That may pose challenges for communicating the path of future rate increases to the public, Fed members said.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
