By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Gold was down on Wednesday morning in Asia, as investors await a decision on asset tapering and earlier interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve in its latest policy decision.
Gold Futures were down 0.12% to $1,770.15 by 11:16 PM ET (4:16 AM GMT). The dollar, which normally moves inversely to gold, inched down 0.03% but kept moves small.
The Fed’s two-day policy meeting is set to wrap up later in the day, where it will hand down its policy decision.
Investors are betting that the Fed will taper its assets between $25 billion-$30 billion every month, from $15 billion currently, by March 2022, and also expect one or two interest rate hikes in the same year.
The Bank of England, the European Central Bank will hand down their policy decisions on Thursday, followed by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) on Friday.
According to a Reuters poll, the BOE is expected to keep interest rates unchanged given that the U.K. reported the first death linked to omicron on Monday, according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
On the data front, U.K. payrolls rose by a record 257,000 in November, putting the BOE in a dilemma as its frames its decision. Meanwhile, BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the country's consumer inflation could hover near 2%, indicating an increase in raw material costs.
In Asia Pacific, Chinese data released earlier in the day showed that industrial production grew 3.8% year-on-year and fixed asset investment grew 5.2% year-on-year, while retail sales grew 3.9% year-on-year in November.
In other precious metals, silver inched up 0.1% and palladium gained 0.6%, while platinum inched down 0.1%.