The price of spot gold rose on Tuesday morning with concerns that violence in Ukraine was on the verge of escalating. But any predictions of an immediate bull market for the precious metal could be premature, according to market analysts.
Spot gold hit $1,312 an ounce by 11:00 a.m. London time with a rise of 1.2 percent for the session. It closed at $1,296 on Monday evening. This comes after gold broke above its 200-day moving average on Friday, an important metric used by analysts to gauge longer term trends for an asset class. Silver closely tracked its bigger brother with a gain of 1.4 percent since the start of Tuesday trading.
Traditionally gold is used as a safe haven by investors in times of volatility and geopolitical tension. And this proved no different on Tuesday with tensions flaring once again in Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea last month.
Around 70 people were arrested in eastern city Kharkiv after pro-Russian protesters stormed government buildings. This follows demonstrations in the area which have added to fears that the Russian government may intervene directly in its struggling neighbor. That in turn would lead to further economically-damaging sanctions from Western governments.
