Gold prices flat in Asia as market digests Yellen comments, eye Greece

Investing.com - Gold prices held steady in early Asia on Monday as markets digested comments on the prospect for a Federal Reserve rate hike this eyar and Greece remained on the boil.

On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold for June delivery traded at $1.204.90 a troy ounce, flat.

Silver for July delivery fell 0.25% to $17.057 a troy ounce.

Copper for July delivery rose 0.17% to 2.799 a pound.

Markets in the United States are closed for Memorial Day.

At the weekend, Reuters reported that Greece cannot make debt repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month unless it achieves a deal with creditors, quoting the interior minister in what it said are the most explicit remarks yet from Athens about the likelihood of default if talks fail.

"The four installments for the IMF in June are 1.6 billion euros. This money will not be given and is not there to be given," Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis told Greek Mega TV's weekend show.

Last week, gold futures inched higher near the ende of the week as investors assessed anew prospects for a rate hike by the Federal Reserve this year.

On Friday, a mostly upbeat Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Friday "it will be appropriate" for the Fed to start raising the federal funds rate from near zero "at some point this year" if the economy performs as she expects.

Yellen said she would want to see "continued improvement in labor market conditions" and become "reasonably confident" inflation will move back to 2% "over the medium term" -- the same two conditions the Fed's rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee has listed in its last two policy statements.

Downplaying apparent first quarter economic weakness, Yellen strongly suggested those conditions will be met if her fairly optimistic economic forecast is fulfilled.

"I expect inflation to move up toward our objective of 2% as the economy strengthens further and as transitory
influences wane."

But Yellen reiterated that rate hikes are apt to be "gradual" because of various headwinds that are still restraining the economy." She also echoed the FOMC statement in saying, "it will be several years before thefederal funds rate would be back to its normal, longer-run level."

A relatively benign CPI report for the month of April likely added to uncertainty. On its face, consumer prices appeared to be soft last month as the headline CPI only gained 0.1% from March, slightly below economists' forecasts. Over the last 12 months, the CPI-U all items index is down by 0.2%.