Gold futures inched lower in early-morning trading on Friday in the US amid residual selling pressure created by a lack of fresh European stimulus measures.
Gold for December settlement on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 90 cents or 0.1 percent to $1,340.70 per ounce. Trade has ranged from $1,336.30 to $1,343.60.
On Thursday, the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to maintain its current bond-buying programme and kept interest rates unchanged, surprising investors who had expected another round of quantitative easing in the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the single market.
“Market participants clearly believe that yesterday’s ECB decision increases the probability of the US Federal Reserve implementing a rate hike before the year is out,” Commerzbank said, adding that recent US data makes a near-term rate increase unlikely, however.
The Federal Reserve will meet on September 20-21 and again on November 1-2 before the country goes to the polls on November 8. Given the looming presidential election and the forecast-missing jobs report for August, the US central bank is widely expected to hold off on raising rates until next year at the earliest despite increasing hawkish rhetoric from FOMC members.
The policy board is contending with sub-par inflation and uneven GDP growth while consumer sentiment is still downbeat despite unemployment holding below five percent.
“Our big-picture outlook remains bullish but more profit-taking could easily be triggered if the price action disappoints, as it may be starting to do,” William Adams at FastMarkets said. “On balance, we expect prices to break higher before too long, so would look for buying opportunities either into strength or into a rebound if prices dip further.”
In a slow day for US data, wholesale inventories are due for release while Fed member Eric Rosengren is scheduled to speak.
Overnight, China’s August CPI came in at 1.3 percent, below July’s reading of 1.8 percent and market forecast of 1.7 percent.
The Chinese August PPI fell 0.8 percent, improving from a drop of 1.7 percent in July and better than consensus of a one-percent drop. August, however, marked the 54th straight month of decline.
Turning to European markets, Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC-40 were down 0.5 percent and 0.7 percent respectively while the dollar recovered by 0.1 percent to 1.1252 against the euro.
As for other precious metals, Comex silver for December settlement fell 11.3 cents or 0.6 percent to $19.565 per ounce. Trade has ranged from $19.465 to $19.725.
Platinum for October delivery edged down $1.10 or 0.1 percent to $1,083.60 per ounce while palladium at $683.00 was down $4.85.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)
The post Gold price continues lower, market rangebound ahead of weekend appeared first on The Bullion Desk.
Read More
Source: Bullion Desk News
