LONDON: Gold fell to a two-month low on Thursday, extending losses for a third day after comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell this week shored up expectations for further increases in US interest rates and held the dollar near a six-week peak.

In his debut testimony before Congress on Tuesday, Powell gave an upbeat assessment of the US economic outlook and indicated the central bank would press ahead with further rate rises after three last year.

Among other precious metals, silver was down 1.1pc at $16.22 an ounce, platinum was 1.7pc lower at $966.80 and palladium was down 3pc at $1,010.75. Palladium was the best-performing precious metal last month, posting a 1.4pc gain. Silver registered the biggest monthly loss, slipping by more than 5pc.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2018