Gold is stable as the dollar retreats

Gold settled on Wednesday as the dollar traded near 3-week lows after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reiterated that the board would be patient in raising interest rates
At 0741 GMT, the spot price of gold was down 0.1 percent at $ 1327.26 an ounce, while US gold futures settled at $ 1329.

The dollar index stood at 96.117 after losing 0.4 percent last night, its lowest level since Feb. 5 at 95.948.

"Gold found very good support at $ 1,300, especially after the Fed's stance," said Mark To, director of research for Hong Kong's Wing Fong Precious Metals.

Gold rises as the dollar depreciates against the yuan
"At the moment, there are very divergent views on the Fed's path, but patience and more reliance on data, which would be good for gold, $ 1,300 to $ 1,400 would be a very reasonable price range this year," he said.

In the meantime, palladium fell 0.5 percent in spot transactions to $ 1551.89 an ounce after climbing to a record high of $ 1565.09 in the previous session, according to Reuters.

Silver fell 0.7 percent to $ 15.83 an ounce, while platinum rose 0.7 percent to $ 861.94 an ounce after hitting its highest level since early November at $ 862.5 earlier in the session.