By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Gold was up on Wednesday morning in Asia, but remained near a one-month low. Investors continued to digest signs from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell that the central bank would discuss wrapping up asset tapering quicker than planned.

By 10:11PM ET (3:11 GMT), they were up 0.2% to $1,780.55 It was $2 less than Tuesday’s record price of $1,780.55 (3:11 AM GMT).

Powell stated that the Fed would discuss the possibility of ending asset tapering earlier than was scheduled at its monthly meeting. He also veered away from describing high inflation as “transitory”.

Powell’s comments gave the boost that it needed to give the, which is normally inversely related to gold, some support. The dollar declined on Wednesday.

Fed officials don’t like inflation exceeding the central bank’s target of 2%. According to Richard Clarida, Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida said that it is important to bring actual inflation down to keep expectations near the Fed goal.

Catherine Mann, a member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, stated Tuesday across the Atlantic that the new COVID-19 variant of the micron could affect consumer confidence and weaken economic recovery.

The World Health Organization cautioned against blanket travel bans. This has already been done by many countries. The effectiveness of the current vaccines to combat the new variant is still being researched.

Later in the day, U.S. data including those from the Fed and the will be made available. Followed by the U.S. jobs report on Friday including:

In Asia Pacific, China’s for November, , was at 49.9.

The other precious metals were silver down 0.3% and platinum up 0.7%. Palladium rose 1%.