gold futures are hovering at their highest level since prices soared following russias invasion of ukraine amid a sliding dollar and optimism over a pause in interestrate hikes from the federal reserve gold prices on wednesday are sitting at 203930 a troy ounce having hit 204490 an ounce earlier in the session the last time gold prices were this high was march 8 2022 when prices settled at 204330 an ounce according to analysts the most recent rally has stemmed from a sliding dollar and economic data in the us pointing to a pause in interestrate hikes from the fed data yesterday showed that us job openings fell to their lowest level since may 2021 which is feeding the narrative that the fed is primed to cut interest rates later this year as the us economy slows according to commonwealth bank of australias vivek dhar we think gold futures are likely to continue responding positively to softer than expected us economic and labor data until at least the next fomc meeting on may 23 mr dhar added in a note this weeks rally comes on top of a particularly strong period for gold led by jitters around the regional banking sector with the collapse of silicon valley bank and signature bank in the us as well as credit suisses collapse across the atlantic at the time gold exchangetraded funds saw huge inflows worth more than 1 billion having previously seen outflows data from factset shows that sdpr gold shares the largest gold etf by assets under management saw inflows of 1139 billion over the past month with 146 million over the past week if the 2050 an ounce mark is sustainably exceeded the price could quickly move toward the alltime high of 2070 an ounce said alexander zumpfe preciousmetals trader at heraeus however mr zumpfe said that positive economic data exceeding expectations could indicate sustained inflationary pressure and as a result could mean the fed keeps hiking rates he said this would put pressure on gold and could trigger a correction