Gold climbs past $5,200 level while US dollar weakens
Gold and silver continue to see historically high levels as the US dollar plunges more than 2.7 percent over the week.
Gold price continued its record rally on Wednesday, exceeding the $5,200 level, ahead of a monetary policy decision by the US Federal Reserve. The dollar fell to a nearly four-year low due to ongoing geopolitical fears.
Spot gold rose about 1.6 percent day-on-day to $5,264.20 an ounce as of 0700GMT, after touching an all-time high of $5,271.45 earlier in the session. Prices gained about 9 percent over the week.
Gold has surged roughly 90.5 percent over the past 12 months and about 17 percent since the start of the year, supported by heightened trade and geopolitical tensions as well as interest rate cuts by major central banks.
Silver also advanced, rising 2.4 percent to $114.8 an ounce. Silver prices have jumped more than 277.6 percent over the past year.
Market participants pointed to the weakening US dollar and geopolitical tensions as the cause of the rally, and US President Donald Trump declined to say that the currency had fallen too much on Tuesday.
“I think it’s great,” Trump said of the weaker dollar. “I mean, the value of the dollar, look at the business we’re doing. No, the dollar is doing great. You know it’s very interesting, if you look at China or Japan, I used to fight like hell with them because they always wanted to devalue their yen ... you know that, the yen and yuan, and they’d always want to devalue it. They devalue, devalue, devalue. And I said, ‘not fair.’ They devalue, because it’s hard to compete when they devalue.”
The US dollar index fell more than 2.7 percent over the week. The dollar also fell to its lowest point since February 2022 on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, growing concerns over a slow labour market and rising costs caused US consumer confidence to plummet to its lowest point in over 11-1/2 years in January. Trump also stated that he will soon name his choice to lead the Fed and that he anticipates a drop in interest rates after the next chair takes office.
At its ongoing January monetary policy meeting, the Fed is widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged.