A fresh wave of the global risk-aversion trade boosted gold’s safe-haven status.
by Chuck Butler
FX Street
Gold gained some follow-through traction on Friday and has now moved well within the striking distance of multi-year tops set on February 24.
Growing market concerns that the coronavirus outbreak has the potential to become a pandemic and rattle the global economy triggered a selloff across the global equity markets. This eventually forced investors to take refuge in the so-called “safe-haven” assets – including gold.
Gold boosted further by a combination of factors
Apart from the global flight to safety, firming market expectations that the Fed will have to cut interest rates by 50 bps for the second time on March 18 aggravated the plunge in the US Treasury bond yields and provided an additional boost to the non-yielding yellow metal.