By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Gold was up on Monday morning in Asia, as investors await key central bank policy decisions throughout the week and high U.S. consumer prices gave the yellow metal a boost.

The climbed 0.8% to $1,786.55 on Friday and was up 0.10% by 11:07PM ET (04:07 GMT) The normal movement of the inverse of gold is also seen in Monday’s.

The is widely expected to quicken the pace of asset tapering when its hands down its policy decision on Wednesday, which could also herald earlier-than-expected interest rate hikes.

The will be delivering their policy decisions late in the week to the, the and the. According to Reuters, the ECB might reduce by half its assets purchases each month starting April.

Data-wise, the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI), which rose 6.8% and 0.8% respectively in November, grew while core CPI increased 4.9% and 0.5%, respectively. This represents the highest annual gain in a year since 1982.

The Asia Pacific release earlier today showed the 18 and 9 respectively for the fourth quarter 2021.

Despite the fact that domestic gold prices have been falling into the new year, there was still a lot of demand in Asia’s top hubs for physical gold. But rates volatility in India deterred Indian jewelers and retail buyers.

Other precious metals: Silver gained 0.4%; platinum was flat at $942.00, and palladium rose 1.4%.