Markets live updates: Gold price near all-time highs, ASX to slip as European stocks steady, Wall Street closed

Gold hit a more than four-month high overnight to trade around $US23 shy of all-time highs, buoyed by US Federal Reserve rate cut bets and a softer US dollar, while silver breached $US40 per ounce for the first time since 2011.

The US dollar was trading near its lowest since late July against a basket of currencies, making dollar-priced gold cheaper for overseas buyers.

“Gold, and especially silver, extended Friday’s strong gains, supported by sticky US inflation, weakening consumer sentiment, [expected] rate cuts … and concerns over Fed independence,” Saxo Bank‘s head of commodity strategy, Ole Hansen, said.

The US personal consumption expenditures price index rose 0.2% month-on-month and 2.6% year-on-year, in line with expectations, data showed on Friday.

“Silver is making a move higher in response to expectations of lower rates, while a tight supply market is helping to maintain an upward bias,” KCM Trade‘s chief market analyst, Tim Waterer, said.

In a social media post last week, San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank president Mary Daly reiterated her support for a rate cut, citing labour market risks.

“The market is watching for Friday’s US job market report, anticipating that this would allow the Fed to resume rate cuts from September onwards [given] this supports investment demand,” said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo.

The August non-farm payrolls, due Friday, are expected to have grown by 78,000 jobs, a Reuters poll showed, versus 73,000 in July.

Non-yielding gold typically performs well in a low-interest-rate environment.

Meanwhile, US trade representative Jamieson Greer said on Sunday that US President Donald Trump’s administration was continuing talks with trade partners despite a US court ruling that most of the tariffs are illegal.

Reporting with Reuters