Investing.com - Gold resumed its recovery on Wednesday from this week’s early tumble amid ramping demand for safe havens as U.S. Treasury yields rebounded and the IMF warned of slowing global growth.
“Investors might start to look for alternative investments to equities, as factors such as high country debt levels and emerging inflation can cause headwinds to higher equity prices,” said Walter Pehowich, executive vice president of investment services at Dillon Gage Metals.
“Eventually, increasing (U.S. vs. China) tariffs will hit the consumer in their pocketbooks, which also is not good news for the equity investor,” Pehowich added.
Gold futures for December delivery was up $3.40, or 0.3%, at $1,194.90 a troy ounce by 2:22 PM ET (18:22 GMT). It earlier settled the session up $1.90 at $1,193.40.
Meanwhile, spot gold, which reflects trading in bullion, was at $1,191.93 per ounce, up $2.11, or 0.2%.
Gold has fallen more than 13% since hitting a peak in April as the dollar rallied on concerns over tit-for-tat tariffs between Washington and Beijing and in the run-up to a Fed rate hike in September.
But over the past week, Treasury yields surged, stopping the dollar and equities in their tracks and helping gold rebound. Still, the precious metal fell 1.4% on Monday for its sharpest loss in two weeks when the bond market was closed for the Columbus Day holiday.
Yields on the benchmark10-Year Treasury note rose to around 3.22% after reaching a seven-year top of 3.261% a day earlier.
The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.2% at 95.17, pulling back from a seven-week high of 95.84 reached in the previous session.
In other precious metals action on COMEX, silver futures were down 0.5% at $14.33 a troy ounce. Platinum was down 0.1% at $828, while palladium rose 0.5% to $1,067.20.
Among base metals, COMEXcopper for December shed 3.7 cents, or 1.3%, to $2.769 a pound.