Gold Up, Boosted by Ongoing COVID-19 Worries

Investing.com – Gold was up on Tuesday morning in Asia as concerns over the recent COVID-19 outbreaks involving the Delta variant in several countries also gave the safe-haven yellow metal a boost.

Gold futures were up 0.51% to $1,818.50 by 1:05 PM ET (5:05 AM GMT) after falling to a one-week low of $1,794.06 during the previous session.

The dollar, which normally moves inversely to gold, inched down on Tuesday but remained near a three-and-a-half-month peak. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields fell to near five-month lows.

In Asia, the People's Bank of China also kept its July loan prime rate (LPR) unchanged for the fifteenth straight month, with the one-year LPR at 3.85% and the five-year LPR at 4.65%. The European Central Bank and Bank Indonesia will also hand down their respective policy decision on Thursday.

Japan’s national core consumer price index (CPI) grew 0.2% year-on-year in June, the fastest annual pace in over a year, according to data released earlier in the day. The data also saidnational CPIgrowth remained unchanged at 0.3% month-on-month.

On the stimulus front, U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on Monday that he would set a procedural vote on a bipartisan, $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill for Wednesday.

In other precious metals, silver eased 0.1%, palladium was steady at $2,597.23, and platinum rose 0.3% to $1,077.98.