Gold rose to a one-week high on Monday as demand for the safe-haven metal rose due to worries over the worsening economic impact from the coronavirus pandemic.
Spot gold rose 0.6% to $1,626.08 per ounce by 0736 GMT, after rising as much as 0.8% in the previous session. US gold futures were up 0.6% at $1,655.10.
"Gold follows the economy, it's still the real economy hedge," said Stephen Innes, chief market strategist at financial services firm AxiCorp.
"In this bear market, gold's moves suggest it's fairly immune to the short covering rally in equities."
The metal jumped to more than one-week high, despite the dollar's rise and gains in Asian equities.
Holdings of the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust, rose 0.7% to 978.99 tonnes on Friday - highest in over three years.
"From a long term standpoint, gold will still remain the preferred asset as the environment of low interest rates and virus induced global slowdown would support a prolonged rally," said Sugandha Sachdeva, vice-president, metals, energy and currency research, Religare Broking Ltd.
Easing supply constraints for physical gold, three of the world's biggest gold refineries said they would partially reopen after a two-week closure that disrupted global supply.
The coronavirus, which emerged in China late last year, has turned into a global pandemic that has claimed more than 65,000 lives and paralysed large swathes of the global economy.
Exacerbating global worries over the pandemic, Mainland China reported 39 new coronavirus cases as of Sunday, up from 30 a day earlier, and the number of asymptomatic cases also surged.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meanwhile, will declare a state of emergency over the pandemic as early as Tuesday, the Yomiuri newspaper reported, as the number of infections topped 1,000 in the capital, Tokyo.
"If Japan moves away from monetary policy and starts rebasing currency by giving people lot of money, that will be bullish for gold," said Innes.
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