By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Gold was up on Wednesday morning in Asia, boosted by retreating U.S. Treasury yields. Investors now await U.S. and Chinese inflation data due later in the week.
Gold futures were up 0.32% to $1,790.45 by 9:34 PM ET (2:34 AM GMT). The 10-year and 30-year U.S. Treasury yields retreated from their one-week highs hit on Tuesday.
Investors now await the U.S. data, including the consumer price index (CPI), due on Friday. Chinese inflation data, including the CPI and producer price index, is due the day before.
The Reserve Bank of India will hand down its policy decision later in the day, while the U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank (ECB), and the Bank of England (BOE) will hand down their policy decisions in the following week.
Eurozone inflation could exceed the ECB's forecast in the long term, so there is no reason now to boost a legacy bond purchase program when an emergency scheme ends in March, said Bank of Estonia Governor Madis Muller.
Meanwhile, the BOE could delay becoming the world's first key central bank to hike interest rates again, thanks to the discovery of the omicron COVID-19 variant.
On the Fed side, U.S. President Joe Biden plans to put forward more nominees for open positions on the central bank’s board by the end of December 2021.
Investors are also monitoring geopolitical tensions after Biden warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of "strong economic and other measures" if Russia invades Ukraine.
In other precious metals, silver edged up 0.2%, platinum was up 0.3% and palladium inched up 0.1%. The average prices of gold, silver, and platinum in 2022 will be almost the same as in 2021, while the average price of palladium will fall, according to consultancy Metals Focus.