Investing.com - Gold futures rose in afternoon trading on Wednesday as investors avoided the dollar ahead of the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent policy meeting.
Gold and the dollar tend to trade inversely with one another.
On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold futures for August delivery traded at 1,324.80 a troy ounce during U.S. trading, up 0.63%, up from a session low of $1,318.90 and off a high of $1,328.30.
The August contract settled down 0.04% at $1,316.50 on Tuesday.
Futures were likely to find support at $1,312.10 a troy ounce, Monday's low, and resistance at $1,334.90, the high from July 1.
The Federal Reserve will release the minutes from its June policy meeting later Wednesday, and investors avoided the greenback ahead of time due to uncertainty as to what clues the U.S. central bank might unveil concerning the direction of monetary policy.
While the labor market has shown some signs of improvement, markets remain unclear if recovery has been strong enough to prompt the Fed to hint that it may begin raising interest rates sooner rather than later.
Last week, the Department of Labor reported that non-farm payrolls rose by 288,000 in June, easily surpassing expectations for an increase of 212,000, though recent data showing that the economy contracted by nearly 3% in the first quarter has cast doubts on the strength of U.S. recovery.
Meanwhile, silver for September delivery was up 0.38% at $21.093 a troy ounce, while copper futures for September delivery were down 0.31% at $3.247 a pound.