The precious metal gold continued to strengthen at a 9-month high in early trading Thursday, taking advantage of continued weakness in the US dollar.
At the opening of the Asian session, the yellow commodity hit a new high at $1,949 an ounce, before prices eased back to trade at $1,942 an ounce.
The king of currencies, the US dollar, continued to weaken to an 8-month low against its main rival, thus providing support for gold to remain strong.
Markets are now more cautious ahead of central bank meetings next week, including the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB).
However, before that investors will be shown first with the release of US gross domestic product (GDP) data for the fourth quarter in the New York session today, and personal consumer expenditure (PCE) data on Friday. PCE data, the main measure of inflation for the Fed , will be the last key data the central bank will scrutinize before making a decision next week.
For now, the Fed is expected to raise interest rates by 25 basis points, down from a 50 basis point increase in December.
