By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Gold was down on Friday morning in Asia, but set for a third consecutive weekly gain. A retreating U.S. yield and an expected third week of declines helped limit losses in the yellow metal.

The dollar was down 0.2% to $1,797.55 at 11:44PM ET (3:44AM GMT) but has gained 0.3% thus far in this week. On Friday, the dollar rose slightly, but was on track for another weekly fall.

For the first time since September 2021, U.S. Treasury yields on 10-year benchmark bonds fell for the largest weekly drop in a decade. Now investors are calculating the implications of the U.S. yield curve’s abrupt flattening regarding economic growth expectations and the pace at which the U.S. Federal Reserve might tighten its monetary policy in the face of rising inflation.

U.S. data released on Thursday showed that the grew a smaller-than-expected 2% quarter-on-quarter, while the grew 5.7% quarter-on-quarter, in the third quarter of 2021. Data from separate sources showed that 281,000 filings were made during the week.

The investors are now awaiting the decision, which is expected to be announced on Nov. 3. While the announcement was made on Thursday. Christine Lagarde of the ECB acknowledged higher inflation but she resisted any market speculations that rising inflation would lead to an interest rate increase as soon as 2022.

Meanwhile, investors have also trimmed their gold price forecasts for the rest of 2021 and into 2022, according to Thursday’s Reuters poll.

Other precious metals saw silver fall 0.3%. This was the lowest week since mid September 2021. The price of platinum dropped 0.1% and palladium rose 0.2%. With a chip shortage forcing carmakers to reduce production, however, both the platinum and palladium prices forecasts were lower in a separate Reuters poll.