By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Gold was up on Friday morning in Asia but strengthening U.S. Treasury yields put bullion on course for its first weekly loss in three.

By 12:26 ET (1:35 GMT), they were up 0.2% to $1,953.30

According to Michael McCarthy, chief strategy officer at Tiger Brokers in Australia, “The outlook on gold is dim” because rising rates are obviously weighty. However, until we can break the $1,930-$2,000 trading range convincingly, we don’t really have much direction for gold,” Tiger Brokers told Reuters.

Benchmark continued its upward trend, as they adopted a more hawkish tone in tightening policies. The central bank is expected to raise interest rates quickly in an effort to reduce inflation.

McCarthy said that a stronger U.S. Dollar could pressure gold. On the other side, geopolitical uncertainties remain a support, and the price of gold is still stuck between those conflicting currents. The average move of the inversely to gold was a slight decline in Wednesday’s.

For the week, gold has fallen 1.3%. The $2,000 mark was almost reached by the yellow metal on Monday due to increased inflation fears and safe-haven demand. But, gold has since dropped back to the two-week lowest it had been during the previous session.

Stephen Innes, SPI Asset Management’s managing partner said that “stagflation has moved from a possible tail risk to a reality,” and that investors around the world are now turning to gold for a portfolio diversifier.

Other precious metals saw silver fall 0.6% while platinum fell 0.2%. With both of them poised for weekly declines, Meanwhile, palladium rose 0.4%.