Gold price (August 29): MCX gold up near Rs 72,000/10 gm, silver up over Rs 500 at Rs 84,489/kg

Gold prices dropped more than 0.70 per cent on Wednesday before paring some of the losses in early trade as the Greenback staged a comeback on short covering moves. But as Fed rate cut expectations remain and there is a slew of data being awaited, gold trades higher.

The xpectations of a Fed rate cut and robust U.S. consumer confidence are providing some support to precious metal prices. 

According to the World Gold Council, prices also benefitted from a modest increase in net inflows of 8 metric tons ($403 million) last week, led by North American funds. Moreover, China’s net Gold imports rose by 17% in July, marking the first month of increases since March, data showed this week.

Outlook Neha Qureshi, Senior Technical & Derivative Analyst, Anand Rathi Commodities & Currencies said that Gold is expected to continue to trade with cautious upside amid Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures for Q2 in the second estimate are expected to improve from 1.4% to 2.8%.    

Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending August 24 are expected to remain unchanged at 232K compared to the previous reading. Weakness in the labor market although may favour chances of a bigger rate cut by the Fed, CME Fed funds tool still shows around 65 % probability of a 25 bps cut in September meeting dimming the upside bias for the day.

Qureshi suggests to buy yellow metal on dips at around Rs 71,800 for a target of Rs 72,300, keeping a stop loss of Rs 71,400 per 10 gm. While for silver, the target is placed at Rs 82,000 and the expert has recommended a sell on rise at aorund Rs 84,000, maintaining a stop loss at Rs 85,000.