Gold recovers as debt-ceiling talks make little progress

By Deep Kaushik Vakil

(Reuters) - Gold prices rebounded from their earlier losses on Tuesday, as yields fell and the dollar retreated from its highs, while another round of U.S. debt ceiling talks ended without much progress.

Spot gold was up 0.3% at $1,975.39 per ounce by 2:15 p.m. EDT (1815 GMT), after shedding as much as 0.8% earlier.

U.S. gold futures settled 0.1% lower at $1,974.50.

Gold rose from session lows on reports of further negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, said Daniel Pavilonis, senior market strategist at RJO Futures.

Representatives of President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans ended another round of debt-ceiling talks with no signs of progress as the deadline to raise the government's borrowing limit or risk default ticked closer.

Wall Street's main indexes fell and the dollar index backed off from its session high, while benchmark 10-year yields fell from a two-month peak. [.N] [USD/] [US/]

"The inverse correlation between yields and gold is still there," Pavilonis said.

Bullion has lost nearly $100 an ounce from its near-record peak hit earlier this month, mainly pressured by growing bets on interest rates staying higher for longer.

"For now the market has not entirely ruled out another rate hike, and that's clearly not what (it) was looking (like) just a month ago and that's leading to this realignment of prices," said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank.

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said on Tuesday U.S. rates may have to go "north of 6%".

Gold tends to lose appeal when rates rise and push up bond yields, increasing the opportunity cost of holding zero-yield bullion.

Investors now await the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's May 2-3 meeting on Wednesday.

Silver fell 0.7% to $23.51 per ounce, platinum was down 1.4% at $1,052.42 and palladium lost 2.7% at $1,450.14.

(Reporting by Deep Vakil and Seher Dareen in Bengaluru; editing by Susan Fenton, Jason Neely, Vinay Dwivedi and Shilpi Majumdar)