As investor attention switched to central bank meetings for clarity on their rate-hike policies, which may reveal whether headway has been achieved in managing inflation, gold prices declined on Monday for a second straight day.

As of 0613 GMT, spot gold was down 0.1% at $1,980.89 per ounce. At $1,990.20, U.S. gold futures were unchanged.

Rising interest rates increase the opportunity cost of owning non-interest bearing bullion, which makes gold very sensitive to those changes.

Because the dollar strengthened by 0.1%, gold became more expensive for customers using foreign currencies.

According to Yeap Jun Rong, a market analyst at IG, “some firming in U.S. Treasury yields following last Friday’s flash PMI data are keeping the downward pressure on gold prices.”

Following the publication of surveys showing an increase in U.S. and euro zone business activity in April, gold prices fell by more than 1% on Friday.

According to the CME FedWatch tool, markets currently predict that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by 25 basis points at its meeting on May 2-3.

“While the Fed’s rate expectations have remained well-anchored thus far, further resilience in economic conditions over the coming weeks could brew speculations for another rate hike in June or push back against the timeline of rate cuts, which will be headwinds for the non-yielding yellow metal,” said IG’s Yeap.

Fed Governor Lisa Cook stated on Friday that after the institution has taken commensurately aggressive action over the past year to lessen price pressures, the outlook for the next stage of central bank monetary policy has gotten less clear.

Furthermore, on May 4, the European Central Bank is anticipated to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point, with a chance of a half-point increase. On May 11, the Bank of England is expected to raise rates to 4.5 percent.

Spot silver fell by 0.3% to $24.95 an ounce, platinum fell by 2.1% to $1,100.45, and palladium fell by 1.1% to $1,583.94 an ounce.