Gold prices drifted fractionally higher on Monday as U.S. markets remained closed for the Martin Luther King holiday while European ones were content to await the European Central Bank’s policy meeting later this week for clues as to how long the current regime of negative interest rates will last.

Prices ticked up slightly after the International Monetary Fund kept its gloomy outlook for 2020, shaving its forecast for global growth this year to 3.3% from 3.4% in October. It also cut the forecast for 2021 by 0.2 percentage point to 3.4%, due chiefly to the slowdown in India and other emerging markets.

The IMF cited “rising geopolitical tensions, notably between the United States and Iran, intensifying social unrest, further worsening of relations between the United States and its trading partners, and deepening economic frictions between other countries.”

In the only data release of note earlier, Germany’s producer prices had rebounded in December but were still down 0.2% on the year, in line with expectations.

By 8:30 AM ET (13:30 GMT), gold futures for delivery on the COMEX exchange were at $1,560.55 a troy ounce, unchanged from Friday’s close, while spot gold had edged 0.3% higher to $1,560.48 an ounce.

Source : Investing.com