By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Gold was up on Friday morning in Asia and was set for its best weekly gain since November 2021. U.S. data is needed to provide information on the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Monetary Policy. Additionally, a weakness and U.S. Treasury yields are encouraging factors.

They were at $1,826.45 as of 10:26 ET (3:30 AM GMT). However, the safe-haven asset had risen 1.4% in the past week.

On Friday, the dollar fell, as it normally trades in an opposite direction to gold. Benchmark fell from its two-year peak earlier in the week.

Lael brainard, the Fed’s most senior official on Thursday indicated that she is preparing to raise interest rates starting in March 2022. This was revealed at the U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing regarding her nomination for vice-chair. John Williams, the New York Fed president will speak at the end of this day.

On Thursday, data showed that the U.S. producer Price Index (PPI) increased 9.7% and 0.2% respectively in December. Core PPI increased 0.5% and 8.3% respectively. Also, the number of people was higher than anticipated at 230,000 per week.

Later in the day, additional data such as and are due. Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:), Citigroup Inc .(NYSE:), and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:) will also report their earnings.

The data for Asia Pacific was released earlier today and showed that it grew by 20.9% annually, 19.5% annually, and reached $94.46 billion in December.

The Board of Governors made the latest policy decision, increasing its interest rates to 1.25 percent.

Other precious metals saw silver drop 0.2% while platinum rose 0.1% and palladium rose 0.4%.