KARACHI: The yellow metal price in global and domestic markets remained flat during trading session on technical ground besides trading activity remained future-speculation as stakeholders made cautious deals and busy in manipulating Futures price. This trend is attributed to hasty selling and interest in strong currencies by stakeholders. The Futures gold price would be firm as the metal was still in leading hands by March 2018. Gold closed at $1,347 an ounce with no variation in value as compared to previous trading session and domestic bullion price witnessed same trend. Gold in tola term remained down by Re 1 tola to close at Rs 55,867 per tola while in grammage value gold remained dull by Re 1 per ten grams to Rs 47,948 per ten grams. Futures Gold remained under hands of leading manipulators in India, Pakistan and other major gold trading countries, as they were able to influence prices and gold Futures on solid based liquidity. The potential buyers in India and Pakistan remained busy in hedging. The gold hedgers made some cautious deals. The general buyers remained on sidelines anticipating further easing in price in coming days on dollar-rupee parity. Buyers made deals according to their immediate needs. Local trading in gold remained dull on back of insignificant buying. Published in Daily Times, February 18th 2018.