Kathmandu, February 11

Even as uncertainty about Trump’s fiscal-stimulus policies and his administration’s spats with traditional allies helped push hedge funds’ bullish bets on gold in the review period of February 5 to 10, strengthening of the dollar in the latter part of the week weighed on the bullion price.

“Though bullion demand had surged in the beginning of the week owing to data of last Friday showing that US wage growth had slowed and weak dollar, the price of precious yellow metal dropped in the latter half as dollar index surged,” explained Dharma Sundar Bajracharya, general secretary of Federation of

Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association (Fenegosida), in a statement.

Gold was priced at Rs 55,300 per tola when the market opened for trading on Sunday. Its price went up over the next two days — Rs 100 a tola to Rs 55,400 per tola on Monday and Rs 400 a tola to Rs 55,800 per tola on Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday, the price of yellow metal remained constant. However, on Friday, gold price dropped by Rs 600 a tola to Rs 55,200 per tola.

Similarly, silver was traded at Rs 805 a tola on Sunday. Its price went up by five rupees per tola on Monday and Tuesday to be traded at Rs 810 a tola and Rs 815 a tola, respectively. The price of white metal remained same over the next two days. On Friday, though, silver price fell by Rs 10 per tola to be traded at Rs 815 a tola.

Analysts expect the price of precious metals to rise in the coming days. Uncertainty about US economic policy and the pace of rate increases by the Federal Reserve ‘may help spur purchases of the yellow metal as a short-term safe haven by central banks and investors’, Eily Ong, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote in a research note.