World gold prices this morning continued to decline with spot gold down 19.3 USD to 1,949.4 USD/ounce. Gold futures last traded at 1,955.7 USD/ounce, down 17.8 USD compared to yesterday morning.
The gold market witnessed its third consecutive decline as investors looked for new signals about the US Central Bank's interest rate stance.
Daniel Ghali, commodity strategist at TD Securities, said that traders will start looking at economic data and potential actions from the US Central Bank and gold will react based on whatever data brings. According to this expert, it is difficult for gold to gain momentum if data does not show economic weakness.
Recently, in their speech, a series of US Federal Reserve (Fed) officials kept a balanced view on the central bank's next decision, but noted that they will focus more on more on economic data and the impact of higher long-term bond yields.
Gold is an asset that is very sensitive to rising US interest rates because they increase the opportunity cost of holding non-interest bearing assets like gold.