Daily Times

Gold prices remained on the back foot on Tuesday amid a surge in the US Treasury bond yields and dollar. As of 1340 hours GMT, gold in the international market was available at $1,817.30 per ounce, shedding $1.90. The price of 10 grams of yellow metal in Pakistan, meanwhile, remained flat for the third straight session at Rs102,900. Gold in the local market was available at the same rate on Monday and Saturday last. The flatness in local gold prices was due to the Pakistani rupee’s depreciation by 0.15 percent (26 paisa) against the US dollar during the day.

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond yield surged to 1.85 percent, which strengthened the dollar. Higher yields tend to weigh on the non-interest-bearing gold price. The investors brace for heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine, causing the risk premium to explode and driving the benchmark US 10-year yields to a new two-year high of $1.85 percent. Expected interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve in March to the tune of 50bps also kept the gold prices under pressure.

From a technical perspective, the immediate support is pegged at the previous day’s low at $1,813 above the $1,811 level, which is a powerful resistance of the SMA10 one-day and SMA100 four-hour. Hence, any further pullback is more likely to attract fresh buying and remain limited near the $1,808 mark, which is a confluence of the 21- and 50-day moving average. Failure to defend this level might prompt some technical selling and accelerate the fall towards the $1,804 level.