Chennai, Mar 03 :
Recession fears emanating from the spread of coronavirus epidemic saw gold spurt on Monday after having crashed last week. In the Indian market, it gained Rs 1,000 per 10 gm while the international rates revisited $1,600 levels after a major correction last week. In the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), gold futures were trading higher by Rs 1,000 from the levels on Friday. It touched Rs 42,350 per 10 gm from Rs 41,300 on Friday. Gold prices had fallen on Friday from the recent highs of Rs 43,750 on February 24.
In the international market, gold had moved down from its recent high of $1,692 per ounce on February 24 to a low of $1,564 on Friday. Monday saw bounce back to $1,612. “The spread of coronavirus across more number of countries has been driving gold prices. Two cases were reported in India as well. Prices have been moving up earlier. However, last week hedge funds had gone for heavy profit-booking to balance the losses in the equity markets. This led to the fall in gold prices,” said Jateen Trivedi, senior research analyst, commodities and currencies, LKP Securi-ties. “Prices are likely to move in a broad range of $1550 and $1650 this week,” added Trivedi.
