By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Gold was up on Friday morning in Asia but was headed towards a second weekly loss. Focus now shifts towards a U.S. Federal Reserve decision, which could give clues as to when asset tapering will start.

The price of $1,758.75 rose 0.12% by 11:39 ET (03:39 GMT). Yellow metal dropped as high as 2.7% Thursday. It has fallen 1.8% over the past week.

While the, which is usually inversely related to gold, sank slightly Friday, but it was still close to three-week highs.

The U.S. currency was boosted by that showed that U.S. grew 1.8% month-on-month and grew 0.7% month-on-month in August.

September’s was 30.7, while the was at 26.3. increased to 332,000 over the past week.

Investors await September’s Michigan Consumer Expectations or Michigan Consumer Sentiment, which are expected later in the morning.

A Reuters poll shows that investors are now expecting asset tapering in November. The reason for this is COVID-19-related outbreaks in the Delta variant, which likely hampered the economic recovery in the last quarter.

A Fed meeting will be held next week in order to issue its policy decisions. That could help to establish a timetable.

The Financial Times reported that Philip Lane, chief economist at the European Central Bank (ECB), stated in a meeting with German economists on Thursday that the bank expects to achieve its 2% inflation target by 2025. Bund futures dropped after the ECB denied the accuracy of that article.

Other precious metals saw silver flat at $22.93/ounce on Thursday, when it hit its lowest point in more than one month. Platinum rose 0.6% and palladium dropped 0.1%.