Gold held onto earlier gains and snapped three days of losses on Wednesday, after minutes of the US Federal Reserve's latest meeting showed policymakers considered changing their planned path of interest rate hikes in 2016. "If the recent tightening of global financial conditions was sustained, it could be a factor amplifying downside risks" to the economy, according to the minutes of the US central bank's January 26-27 policy meeting.
Gains were limited, however, as global equity markets rallied. Spot gold was up 0.6 percent at $1,207.46 an ounce at 2:48 pm EST (1948 GMT), while US gold futures for April delivery settled up 0.3 percent at $1,211.40. "We believe that the Fed won't be able to raise rates until later in the year and even then the central bank will only be able to raise rates twice, a path that is still more aggressive than what the market has priced in," said Royce Mendes, director and senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets in Toronto. Silver was up 0.5 percent at $15.30 an ounce, while platinum was up 1.5 percent at $940.74 an ounce and palladium was up 1.2 percent at $511 an ounce.
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