On Friday, gold is set to achieve its best weekly performance in more than two months due to renewed indications that the US Federal Reserve may be reluctant to reduce economic support in the short term.
Spot gold was steady at $1,827.41 per ounce by 0648 GMT, after hitting its highest since July 15 at $1,832.40 on Thursday. It is up 1.4% so far for the week.
U.S. gold futures fell 0.3% to $1,830.80 per ounce.
“The backdrop for gold is still positive... There is a lot of uncertainty in terms of whether the economic recovery will continue as strong and what happens in the U.S. labor market,” said Harshal Barot, a senior research consultant for South Asia at Metals Focus.
“There’s no clear signal to suggest that the Fed will have to hike rates aggressively.”
Gold jumped as much as 1.4% on Thursday following Fed chief Jerome Powell’s remarks that the U.S. job market still had “some ground to cover” and that it was “ways away” from considering interest rate hikes.
As for other precious metals, silver settled at $25.51 an ounce and is heading towards achieving its first weekly gain in four weeks.
Palladium rose 0.2 % to $2,652.42 an ounce, while platinum fell 0.5 percent to $1,055.38.
