Gold Futures Settle Higher On Safe-haven Appeal

Gold prices climbed higher on Tuesday on safe-haven appeal amid rising concerns about escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Weak stock markets and the dollar’s decline supported gold prices. The dollar index dropped to a low of 95.84 in the Asian session, but recovered to 96.04 later amid wild swings.

Gold futures for April ended higher by $7.60 or about 0.4% at $1,907.40 an ounce.

Silver futures for May ended up by $0.318 at $24.356 an ounce, while Copper futures for May settled at $4.5175 per pound, down 0.0085 from the previous close.

Geopolitical tensions over Ukraine intensified after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine as independent and ordered a deployment of troops to these regions to “keep the peace.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin subsequently ordered troops into the territory as “peacekeepers,” intensifying a crisis the West fears could unleash a major war.

Meanwhile, the U.K. has announced a “first tranche” of sanctions on Russia, targeting five Russian banks and three “very high net worth” individuals. Germany has also halted the certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, while the U.S. plans to announce additional sanctions on Russia later in the day.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described the actions by Russia as moving “from covert attempts to destabilize Ukraine to overt military action.”

In U.S. economic news, a report from the Conference Board showed a modest decrease in U.S. consumer confidence in the month of February.

The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index dipped to 110.5 in February from a downwardly revised 111.1 in January. Economists had expected the consumer confidence index to drop to 110.0 from the 113.8 originally reported for the previous month.

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