Gold futures settled with a loss on Monday after clinching their strongest one-day gain in a month on Friday following the release of the Labor Department’s June jobs report.
Traders are looking ahead to U.S. inflation data, with readings on the consumer-price index and producer-price index this week expected to offer further clues on the Federal Reserve’s path for interest rates.
Price action
-
Gold futures for August delivery
GC00,
+0.34% GCQ23,
+0.34%
shed $1.50, or nearly 0.1%, to settle at $1,931 per ounce on Comex, following a gain of 0.9% for Friday’s session. -
Silver futures for September delivery
SIU23,
-0.11% SI00,
-0.11%
settled at $23.345 per ounce, up 6 cents, or 0.2%. -
Palladium futures for September
PAU23,
+0.79%
fell by $8.40, or 0.7%, to $1,236.70 per ounce, platinum for October delivery
PLV23,
-0.31%
gained $16.30, or 1.8%, to $934.80 per ounce. -
Copper for September
HGU23,
-0.34%
rose by less than a penny, or nearly 0.1%, to $3.7845 per pound.
Market drivers
Gold prices benefited from the sharply weaker U.S. dollar late last week, but the boost appears to have faded as gold futures once again stabilized around the $1,930 per ounce level.
Read: China restricts access to 2 metals crucial to making semiconductors. What you need to know.
“Gold is again trading in familiar territory,” that is, above $1,900 but below the 100-day moving average of $1,925, said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade, in emailed commentary.
See: Why gold will beat the stock market in coming weeks
Expectations of a July hike by the Federal Open Market Committee is “keeping the short-term upside for gold capped,” he said.
Attention will be “squarely on U.S. CPI and PPI data this week, because while a July rate hike is all but baked into the cake,” said Waterer.
“What happens to U.S. interest rates between August and the end of the year is still an open question,” he said. “As such, inflation gauges are the fulcrum around which market sentiment swings.”
Consumer prices on Wednesday are expected to have risen by 0.3% in June, according to the median forecast from economists polled by The Wall Street Journal, while PPI due out Thursday is seen up by 0.2%.
Meanwhile, the ICE U.S. Dollar Index
DXY,
a gauge of the dollar’s strength against a basket of rivals, declined by 0.3%, to 102.01, providing little support to dollar-denominated prices of gold on Monday.
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