12.07.202110:26:00UTC+00Gold Eases On Firmer Dollar

Gold prices eased on Monday and the U.S. dollar strengthened against its major counterparts as investors await U.S. inflation data and Fed Chair Jerome Powell's semi-annual Congressional testimony for more clues on the timeline for tapering asset purchases by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Concerns over the rapid rise of the Delta variant of the coronavirus and the slow pace of vaccinations offered some respite to the precious metal.

Spot gold dropped half a percent to $1,799.02 per ounce, while U.S. gold futures were down 0.6 percent at $1,799.65.

Powell's testimony on Wednesday will help gauge whether the Fed will move too soon with tapering its QE program. Besides CPI data, U.S. retail sales, PPI, jobless claims and industrial production are due this week.

On the COVID-19 front, finance ministers from the Group of 20 countries warned over the weekend that the global economic growth is at risk from the spike of new coronavirus variants and the low vaccine availability in developing countries.

There were over 2.6 million new cases last week, with Europe experiencing a sharp increase of 30 percent, the WHO said in its latest epidemiological update.