Gold prices rose during Monday’s trading, to recover after sharp losses on Friday, amid hopes of an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve to mitigate the economic impact associated with the rapid spread of coronavirus worldwide.

As of 07:49 GMT, spot gold hovered around $1,599.10 an ounce, where the precious metal hit the highest level today at $1,607.45.

The precious metal recovered after suffering losses of more than 4.5 percent during Friday’s trading, in the worst daily performance in percentage terms since June 2013.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that while the U.S. economy remains strong, Corona poses a burgeoning risk on US economy and the central bank stands ready to take action if necessary.

Investors are now putting the possibility of a 50 basis point cut in US interest rates at the March meeting.

Regarding to corona developments, China's National Health Commission said on Monday that it had detected 202 new cases of MERS-CoV across the country on Sunday, down sharply from Saturday's 573 cases, bringing the total number of cases in China to 80,026.

Outside China, the Algerian Ministry of Health said on Monday that it has detected two cases of Mers-CoV, bringing the total number of cases to 3, while the United States has declared the second case of death from the virus, while the total number of confirmed infections is more than 75 cases.

As for other precious metals, silver rose 2.98 percent to $16.95 an ounce, to recover from five consecutive sessions of losses.

Palladium advanced by 0.63 percent to trade at $2,506.75 an ounce, while platinum went in the same direction by increasing about 2.10 percent at $882.90.

The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the U.S. currency against a basket of six major currencies, slumped 0.29 percent at 97.77.