Gold prices rallied on Friday, supported by dollar weakness, and are bracing for the biggest weekly gains since mid-November as the global banking crisis prompted investors to turn to the safe-haven metal. .
And at 03:13 GMT, gold in instant transactions was up 0.5%, to $1928.08 an ounce. U.S. gold futures rose 0.5% to $1,932.10.
Shares of the yellow metal are up about 3.2% since the beginning of the week, registering the third consecutive weekly increase, supported by the demand for safe-haven assets after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the biggest bank failure since the financial crisis of 2008, according to Reuters.
On Thursday, major US banks pumped $30 billion of deposits into First Republic Bank to bail it out after it got stuck in the crisis. This came after Credit Suisse said it would take in loan of up to $54 billion from the Swiss National Bank to shore up liquidity after the aftermath of the crash has caught up with it.
Ilya Spivak, head of global macroeconomics at Tasty Life, said the banking crisis appears to be supporting gold “because it has led to… credit pressures.”
But the European Central Bank raised interest rates by 50 basis points on Thursday as worries about rising inflation outweighed worries about a global banking crisis.
Federal Reserve officials are expected to continue their anti-inflation campaign by raising interest rates by 25 basis points at their March policy meeting.
The opportunity cost of holding unprofitable bullion increases as interest rates rise.
The dollar index fell 0.2%, making gold more attractive to buyers holding other currencies.
Among other precious metals, silver was up 0.9% in spot transactions to $21.89 an ounce, platinum was up 0.8% to $980.33 and palladium was up 0.9%, to $1443.80.
All three metals are heading for weekly gains and silver is expected to post its best week since early December.
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