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By Asha Sistla
(Reuters) - Gold bounced back on Thursday from a three-week low hit in the previous session, as the U.S. dollar and Treasury yields eased, while President Joe Biden's $2 trillion-plus jobs plan further supported the metal's appeal as a hedge against inflation.
Spot gold rose 0.4% to $1,713.31 per ounce by 0353 GMT, after touching its lowest since March 8 at $1,677.61 on Wednesday. U.S. gold futures were down 0.1% to $1,713.80 per ounce.
"Gold rallied overnight on quarter-end portfolio rebalancing flows, assisted by a weaker U.S. dollar and no fireworks in the U.S. bond market after President Biden released the first details of the infrastructure package," said OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley.
The dollar index pulled back after hitting a five-month high on Wednesday, making gold less expensive for holders of other currencies.
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Biden announced his second multitrillion-dollar legislative proposal in two months in office, including $621 billion to rebuild infrastructure.
"The package itself is reasonably revenue neutral, meaning less bond issuance than expected. That allowed bond yields to remain stable, which helped gold move higher over the day," OANDA's Halley said.
Gold is seen as a hedge against higher inflation that could follow stimulus measures, but a recent spike in U.S. Treasury yields has weighed on the non-yielding commodity.
For a reversal in the dollar recovery and gold's downtrend, "probably have to see market participants pricing in a better outlook for the European economy, and for the Asian region as well," said IG Market analyst Kyle Rodda.
Spot gold faces resistance at $1,716 per ounce and it may hover below this level for a day or retreat to $1,691, according to Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.
Elsewhere, silver shed 0.2% to $24.34, while platinum fell 0.4% to $1,182.73 and palladium was down 0.1% to $2,617.30.
(Reporting by Asha Sistla in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
