Citing an announcement from Japan's Ministry of Finance, Reuters reported on Tuesday that Japan will impose a ban on Russia-bound exports of precious metals, mainly gold, from April 5 as part of the latest sanctions over the conflict with Ukraine.

Market reaction

This headline seems to be helping gold recover modestly from the two-week low it set at $1,909 earlier in the day. As of writing, the XAU/USD pair was trading at $1,915, where it was down 0.4% on a daily basis.