LONDON: Gold steadied on Thursday after two sessions of gains as a stronger dollar index weighed on upside momentum, though the precious metal took some comfort from a steadier yuan.

Gold has been highly correlated with the yuan in recent weeks, with the Chinese currency acting as a proxy for concerns about Sino-US trade tensions.

The yuan steadied versus the dollar as dollar bulls remained wary of potential policy moves to stabilise the Chinese currency.

Against a currency basket, the dollar rose thanks to simmering geopolitical tensions around the world, though traders said the greenback needed fresh impetus or an escalation in trade tensions to move higher.

A strong dollar makes dollar-priced gold costlier for non-US investors.

“We don’t have a lot of people interested in gold at the moment and that’s reflected in the price. We need a change in dollar (direction) to take gold consistently higher,” said Bank of America-Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Widmer.

Silver rose 0.5pc to $15.46 an ounce, while platinum gained 0.9pc to $833.70.

Palladium fell 0.3pc to $897.20, after hitting a more than two-week low in the previous session.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2018