Gold prices drifted in a narrow range on Monday, but held near the previous session's low, pressured by a firmer dollar and expectations of a series of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve this year and in 2018. Spot gold was nearly unchanged at $1,276.61 per ounce at 0734 GMT. On Friday, gold dropped 0.7 percent for its biggest one-day percentage fall since Oct. 26, weighed down by a rise in US Treasury bond yields.
US gold futures for December delivery were up 0.2 percent at $1,277.10. "The sell-off (on Friday) underlines the sensitivity of gold to the US yield curve and further emphasizes that the safe-haven premium in the gold price is mainly non-existent at the moment," said Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst with OANDA.
"Gold's fate will not be its own as we enter the home stretch of 2017." The expectation of an interest rate hike by the Fed next month is keeping gold prices range-bound, said Richard Xu, a fund manager at China's biggest gold exchange-traded fund, HuaAn Gold.
Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said on Monday that he expects to back an interest rate hike next month and expects the central bank in the United States to raise rates three times next year. Spot gold is biased to retest support at $1,263 per ounce, a break below which could open the way towards the next support at $1,241, said Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.
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