Mubasher: Gold prices edged up on Friday, as heightened tensions between the US and China lent support to the precious metal which was cruising toward a weekly win, according to Reuters.

At 9:38 am GMT, spot gold rose by 0.09% to $1,285.26 per ounce, while US gold futures went up by 0.05% to $1,285.90 per ounce.

The US officially put into effect 25% tariff hike on $200 billion in Chinese imports on Friday, as China stated that it would retaliate, raising the ante between the world’s two biggest economies, both of which are currently attempting to secure a trade agreement.

High-level US and Chinese trade negotiators concluded the first round of the two-day talks on Thursday to salvage a trade deal.

The ongoing bilateral negotiations are approaching a deadlock as the White House followed through on plans to raise duties on hundreds of billions of dollars on Chinese goods.

“There is still some level of uncertainty surrounding the US-China trade deal, and when gold tends to go down there seems to be opportunistic buying,” National Australian Bank economist John Sharma was quoted by Reuters.

The yellow metal dropped late last week to its lowest levels since the end of December 2018, but since then it has rallied by almost 1.4%.

However, gains were somehow offset despite wide risk-off sentiment in the market, with other safe-haven assets rising such as the Japanese yen (JPY) and Swiss franc (CHF).

“A lot of the [influence from] trade talks was priced in, and for gold to rise more sustainably we need to see some more weakness in the [broader financial] market,” Sharma said.

Despite worries over the global economy persisted, no confirming signs of a much slower growth pace are there yet, he added.