Gold recovers from biggest dip in five months after Fed rate rise

At 1634, the three-month copper delivery futures contract was down 1.0% to $4,549.00 per metric tonne on the London Metal Exchange.

Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell on Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates.

Gold futures jumped on Friday as the dollar softened a day after jolting higher in the wake of a historic interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve.

Spot gold was up 1.3 percent at $1,065.30 an ounce at 2:10 p.m. EST (1910 GMT), while US gold futures for February delivery settled up 1.5 percent at $1,065 an ounce.

Despite Friday’s rise, investors have been warning of the possibility of further weakness in gold if the dollar continues to tick higher. Global Research, said from Tokyo.

“Gold remains heavily bearish and bears have been gifted an opportunity to install another round of selling momentum throughout metals before the end of the year”.

Gold is being whipsawed as investors try to gauge the pace of future US interest-rate increases.

The U.S. dollar eased 0.4 percent.

“The only base metal to remain in positive territory was tin which has its own set of supportive fundamentals, but for the rest it was a slow grind to lower levels with lead falling sharply as this week’s LME stock inflows weigh and the technical picture deteriorates”.

Still, 17 of 28 traders and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg said the precious metal will rise in 2016, with a median year-end estimate at $1,200 an ounce, about 12 percent more than now.

“It’s what the Fed does next that the market will be focused on, and that largely depends on economic and financial market developments”, Jordan Eliseo, chief economist at trader Australian Bullion Co.in Sydney, said by e-mail. It was gold’s worst day in almost two months. The assets are on course for another annual decline after contracting 9.2 percent in 2014 and 33 percent the year before that. Silver was up 1.5 percent at $13.90 an ounce, while platinum was up 0.8 percent at $850.20 an ounce and palladium was down 0.5 percent at $551.24 an ounce. While talk of monetary tightening has continued for many months, a rate hike is now imminent, according to most observers.