Gold rose to its highest price in more than two weeks on Thursday, boosted by a sharp pullback in US equities and follow-through buying a day after minutes from the Federal Reserve's latest policy meeting revealed its cautious approach in future interest-rate hikes.
Analysts said gold buying accelerated following Wednesday's Fed minutes, which showed officials fretted last month that investors would overreact to policymakers' fresh forecasts on interest rates that appeared to map out a more aggressive cycle of rate hikes than was actually anticipated. Spot gold was up 0.6 percent at $1,319.65 an ounce by 2:52 pm EDT (1852 GMT), having earlier hit $1,324.40, its highest since March 24. US COMEX gold futures for June delivery settled up$14.60 to $1,320.50 an ounce, with trading volume about 35 percent below its 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed.
Gold prices had come under pressure, falling to a seven-week low of $1,277.90 on April 1, on signs that strong US economic data could prompt further dollar strengthening and comments from Fed Chair Janet Yellen on March 19 that interest rates could rise in the first half of 2015. Among other precious metals, silver rose 1.1 percent to $20.07 an ounce. Platinum rose 1.4 percent to $1,455 an ounce, having earlier reached a three-week high of $1,459 an ounce and palladium gained 1.3 percent to $788.50 an ounce.