Can gold rally past $2,000? Precious metal rises as Russia’s assault on Ukraine intensifies

Trading in precious metals came as Russian troops advanced in the south of Ukraine after taking the city of Kherson and moving toward Zaporizhya.

Gold and other precious metals have been sought out, as investors turn to the perceived safety of these havens amid the geopolitical uncertainty.

Razaqzada said that doubts about the prospects for a cease-fire in Eastern Europe was supporting bullion buying.

April gold GCJ22, +2.01% GC00, +2.01%  traded $13.60, or 0.7%, to settle up at $1,935.90 an ounce, following a 1.1% decline on Wednesday. The precious metal was looking at a weekly rise of 2.6% thus far, marking its fourth positive week of the past five.

Bullion has seen a series of large gains and retreats, but the trend has been mostly higher, with a 2.3% gain on Tuesday taking bullion to the highest most-active contract finish since January 2021.

Investors also are watching the path of monetary policy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell who delivered a second day of congressional testimony a day after telling a House committee that he would recommend a quarter-point rate increase in two weeks as it fights inflation.

“We’re going to see upward pressure on inflation at least for a while,” Powell told a Senate Banking Committee Thursday.  

“In this very sensitive time at the moment, it’s important for us to be careful in the way we conduct policy simply because things are so uncertain and we don’t want to add to that uncertainty,” he said.

“Against this backdrop, I am expecting gold to go well north of $2,000,” Razaqzada wrote.

Ricardo Evangelista, senior analyst at ActivTrades, said investors are playing “a balancing act by factoring in the heightened geostrategic risk posed by the ongoing war in Ukraine on one side and the measurement of the Fed’s approach to tighten monetary policy on the other,” in a Thursday research note.

Elsewhere on Comex, May silver SIK22, +2.67% added 2.2 cents to settle at $25.212 an ounce, a day after gold’s sister metal declined 1.4%.

May copper HGK22, +2.87% climbed 11.6 cents, or 2.5%, to finish at $4.7815 a pound; April platinum PLJ22, +4.18% advanced $12.60, or 1.2%, to settle at $1,080.80 an ounce, and June palladium PAM22, +9.49% climbed $65.90, or 2.5%, to end at $2,730.80 an ounce.