Gold prices saw a slight increase at the start of the markets in the UAE on Thursday, February 20, staying near record levels. By 11 am UAE time, the price of 24K gold rose to AED354.25 per gram, up from AED354 at Wednesday’s market close.
Other gold variants also saw a small rise, with 22K reaching AED329.75, 21K at AED316, and 18K priced at AED271 per gram.
Vijay Valecha, Chief Investment Officer, Century Financial, shared the gold rose by 0.4% today and is currently trading at $2944.
“The ongoing trade war tensions have spiked up the safe-haven demand for gold. Analysts expect the yellow metal to reach $3000 amid the same. The minutes of the Fed’s meeting were released yesterday; the minutes presented a very hawkish stance; however, despite the same, gold continued its bullish trajectory, mainly owing to the uncertain economic implications of President Donald Trump’s proposed policy measures,” shared Valecha.
Though from a technical standpoint, gold hit all-time highs today, reaching $2949, on the hourly chart, the commodity is in a strong uptrend, supporting the bullish stance.
“Support is at the level of 2941, and resistance is at 2960,” he added.
Meanwhile, oil prices steadied following a series of modest gains, as an industry report highlighted another increase in US crude stockpiles, adding to the ongoing uncertainty over global supplies. The industry-funded American Petroleum Institute reported a 3.3 million-barrel increase in US commercial inventories last week, which would be the fourth week of builds if confirmed by official data later on Thursday.
“Crude has risen this week on concerns about tighter supply, as OPEC+ looks set to push back a production increase, exports from Kazakhstan were cut by a Ukrainian drone strike, and the Group of Seven nations mulled a tighter price cap on Russian oil. However, trading has calmed after a tumultuous start to the year, with a gauge of implied volatility declining as the market becomes increasingly numb to the array of changes that US President Donald Trump is seeking to implement,” Vijay further noted.
Trump called his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy a dictator, compounding fears that a deal to end the three-year-old war with Russia will be reached without Kyiv’s involvement. Any peace agreement could impact the status of currently sanctioned barrels from Russia, he suggested.
