Gold set for longest run of weekly losses since 2018 on dollar

Gold is heading for its fifth weekly loss, the longest streak of such declines in almost four years, with its haven credentials sidelined by investors becoming super-bullish on the US dollar.

Bullion has come under relentless pressure in the past month as investors turn to the greenback in the face of an increasingly hawkish Federal Reserve. That trade got another boost this week from soaring US inflation.

Gold slumped below $1,700 an ounce on Thursday for the first time in almost a year, while Bloomberg’s dollar gauge climbed to a record.

While high inflation and growth threats typically aid gold, the precious metal is wilting as investors weigh the prospect of bigger or more frequent interest rate hikes from a Fed trying curb price pressures. Gold doesn’t pay interest, and, like other dollar-denominated commodities, it suffers when the dollar rises.

This week’s decline extends a tumultuous 2022 for gold, which soared above $2,000 an ounce after the Ukrainian crisis. It has since cratered as the Fed raised interest rates and the dollar strengthened.

Gold was steady on Friday at $1,712.44 an ounce, heading for a weekly loss of 1.7 per cent. It’s down about 17 per cent from the March high. Platinum, palladium and silver were all little changed.

Read: Gold wavers as traders again turn to greenback as haven