By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Gold was up on Tuesday morning in Asia despite a strong U.S. stocks market as investors monitor the impact of the Omicron variant on the economy.

By 9:56 ET (2:56 GMT), the climbed 0.06% to $1809.80. On Tuesday, the, which is normally inversely related to gold moved up 0.06%.

Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: SpendingPulse) survey found that U.S. retails sales rose 8.5% between November 1 and December 24. This Sunday’s survey showed that investors were more positive and U.S. stocks rose to new records.

Investors also monitor the effects of omicron upon the economy’s recovery. Even with the increase in cases, the U.K. is not going to tighten restrictions before the end. France will continue to tighten COVID-19, but it will not enforce a curfew on New Year’s Eve.

Also, the U.S. reduced recommended isolation times for Americans infected by HIV from 10 to 5 days.

In Asia Pacific, the Chinese city of Xi’an tightened curbs on travel on Monday, its fifth day of a strict lockdown. Xi’an reported 150 local cases on Sunday.

The People’s Bank of China also reiterated on Monday that the yuan exchange rate will be more flexible in 2022 and will remain stable overall at a reasonable and balanced level. According to the central bank, it will make sure that credit continues growing through 2022.

Japanese data earlier today showed that November saw a 7.2% increase in month-over-month growth. In November, the difference was between 1.15 and 2.8%.

Other precious metals saw silver drop 0.1% and palladium fall 0.6%. Platinum edged down 0.2%.