Gold edged higher on Friday as the dollar hovered near a two-and-a-half-year low, helping offset concerns over delays in a U.S. pandemic rescue package.
Spot gold rose 0.1% to $1,836.27 per ounce early Friday morning. U.S. gold futures gained 0.2% to $1,840.30.
Experts say gold needs a very strong catalyst to break its descending trend and that could be in form of a dovish Federal Reserve, a larger than expected U.S. fiscal stimulus bill or the unlikely failure of vaccines.
Meanwhile, data on Thursday showed U.S. weekly jobless claims jumped to a near three-month high, reinforcing that rising Covid-19 infections and lack of additional fiscal stimulus were hurting the economy.
Gold is seen as a hedge against inflation and currency debasement likely to result from large stimulus measures.
Silver fell 0.1% to $23.92 U.S. an ounce and palladium was up 0.1% at $2,333.24 U.S. Platinum fell 0.1% to $1,025.99 U.S. and was set to decline 2.7% this week.
