Bengaluru — Gold fell on Wednesday as the dollar strengthened on hawkish comments overnight from US Federal Reserve officials, while an eagerly awaited speech by US President Donald Trump contained few specifics or surprises. Spot gold had dropped 0.5% to $1,244.93/oz by 3.45am GMT. The metal hit its highest since November 11 at $1,263.80 on February 27. US gold futures fell 0.8% to $1,243.60. Trump pledged to overhaul the immigration system, improve jobs and wages for Americans and promised "massive" tax relief to the middle class and tax cuts for companies. "The speech was very light on detail ... I suspect it has a bit turned into a damp squib. There were no new policy announcements there and a lot of it is already built into the US dollar," said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at Oanda. "I would expect US dollar to weaken in the coming hours and things like gold and oil should rally." The president had already said on Monday that he would propose a budget that would increa...
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