By Seher Dareen

(Reuters) – Gold settled near $2,000 per ounce on Thursday after large gyrations in the last couple of sessions. This was due to its safe-haven appeal being supported by a dearth of progress between Russia and Ukraine.

After falling as high as 3% Wednesday, they were stable at $1.992.37 an ounce in 1544 GMT. U.S. increased 0.5% to $1.998.60

This week, gold was in a rush to secure assets that brought it close to the August 2020 record.

Investors also tracked February inflation data from America, which was within expectations and showed the highest year-over-year growth since January 1982.

“The inflation numbers are definitely a bullish factor for gold. Jim Wycoff is senior analyst for Kitco Metals. “But, geopolitics outweighs economic data at the moment,” he said.

The bulls of gold spent much energy driving prices up to record levels earlier in the week. Even bullish inflation data won’t be of much use because (prices are) exhausted.

In the face of rising oil and commodity prices investors are eagerly awaiting the Federal Reserve’s March 16th policy statement.

The desire to purchase riskier assets was hurt by talks between Russia-Ukraine’s foreign ministers that failed to produce any tangible progress towards a ceasefire.

To curb emissions, automakers used palladium to make catalytic convertors. It fell 0.4%, to $2,924.70 an troy ounce. Due to supply disruptions fears from Russia, palladium hit an all-time high of $3.440.76 Monday.

According to Eli Tesfaye (senior market strategist, RJO Futures), overall gold and palladium remain “relatively solid” while technicals point to the upside. He added that the price action on Thursday is expected to be the defining moment for the future.

Spot gold rose 0.5% to $25.85 an ounce while spot silver fell 0.4% to $1.071.45