Gold Flat Ahead of Fed Minutes, G20

Investing.com – Gold prices were virtually flat on Wednesday morning trade in Asia, with little investor activity and not clear catalysts to drive prices in either direction.

for February delivery were up 0.1% to $1,221.10 by 10:15PM ET (03:13AM GMT) on the Comex commodity exchange.

Gold has been moving for almost two weeks within a relatively narrow range within a few dollars in either direction, struggling to gain traction and resisting big drops.

Part of the lacklustre trade in gold may be due to a strengthening of the US dollar over the past couple of weeks. The , that tracks the greenback against the basket of currencies, was flat at 97.37. The index has rebounded from 96.19 on Nov. 19.

Gold traders are likely to look the minutes from the US Federal Reserve meeting held on Nov. 7 – 8 that will be released later this week. Those minutes could provide some indication of how fast or slow the Fed plans to hike interest rates next year. Higher interest rates put downward pressure on non-yielding gold but can, on the other hand, shore up the dollar.

Another possible catalyst for gold are any changes to the US-China trade war from an upcoming meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping this weekend during the G20 Summit in Argentina.

In a report released on Monday, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:) said commodity prices could surge over the next year, rebounding from prices that are now below fundamentals, according to a report quoted by Bloomberg News. The investment bank believes the current low prices “offer and extremely attractive entry point for longs in oil, gold and base.”

Goldman believes a catalyst for a rebound in prices to be the G20 meeting, where the political uncertainties that have held commodity prices down “have a significant chance of being addressed”.

for March delivery were up 0.20% to $14.250. for March delivery was up 0.44% to $2.748.

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