International gold prices weakened on Thursday after hitting an one-week high of $1948.63 an ounce, and investors are also assessing the outlook for Fed policy, despite the possibility of further chaos in the global supply chain caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
At 15:27 Beijing time, spot gold fell 0.11% to $1941.76 / oz, COMEX gold contract rose 0.26% to $1942.4 / oz, and the dollar index rose 0.23% to 98.870.
But U. S. President Joe Biden and other European leaders will impose new sanctions on Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday (March 23) that Russia would start selling natural gas to "unfriendly countries" in rubles. The market is worried that the move will exacerbate the shortage of energy supply and further push up inflation.
"it is not clear how serious Russia's request is," said Susan Sakmar, a visiting professor at the University of Houston and LNG industry consultant. It takes a long time for this kind of thing to come true. At the same time, Mr Putin can keep prices high. This is very much in his interest. "
Investors continue to assess the outlook for interest rates in the United States. Fed policymakers signalled on Wednesday that they were prepared to take more aggressive action to bring down unacceptably high inflation, including the possibility of raising interest rates by 0.5 percentage points at their next policy meeting in May.
"I have everything on the table now," Daley, chairman of the San Francisco Fed, said at an event organized by Bloomberg News. If we need to raise interest rates by 50 basis points, that's what we'll do. Since the labour market is so strong, inflation, inflation, inflation is everyone's primary concern. "
Cleveland Fed Chairman Mestre said Wednesday that there is no obstacle for the Fed to raise interest rates and start shrinking its balance sheet at the same policy meeting. "I think, given the situation we are in and the communication made by President Powell on the balance sheet process, I am not worried that this will destabilize. I think we have to recognize that inflation is already very high. We must do everything we can to use these two policy tools to control inflation. "
"people are looking at what the Fed is thinking-they want to really deal with high inflation, which means interest rates will rise very quickly this year," said Brian Lan, managing director of dealer GoldSilver Central. As a result, the market is trying to digest the more pressing things to come. Gold prices have actually fluctuated in the range for some time, with support at $1917 and resistance at $1950. "
