Gold price logs a gain for the session, erases its loss for the week

New York (April 22)  Gold prices climbed Friday, erasing a loss for the week on the back of investor uncertainty ahead of first round of France’s presidential election this weekend.

Gold for June delivery on Comex GCM7, +0.17%  rose $5.30, or 0.4%, to settle at $1,289.10 an ounce. The session’s climb sent prices higher for the week, by less than 0.1%, or roughly 60 cents an ounce.

May silver SIK7, -0.63%  held on to earlier losses, down 16.2 cents, or 0.9%, to $17.856 an ounce, poised for its lowest finish since late March. It was about 3.5% lower on the week.

Gold prices have now posted gains for six weeks straight. They climbed by 2.5% last week.

“I think the big rally last week off $1,200 priced in a lot of the current political uncertainties,” Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, told MarketWatch. “There hasn’t been anything new other than the attack in France to change the political outlook over the last 48 hours and even then, the election result is a toss up.”

French voters go to the polls Sunday. If, as expected, no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, a final runoff between the top two vote getters will take place on May 7.

Read: When are the French election results out on Sunday?

The vote is the latest test of nationalist sentiment following last year’s vote by the U.K. to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s U.S. election victory last November. A strong showing by anti-European Union candidates, right-wing National Front leader Marine Le Pen or left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, could spark a near-term global scramble for havens like gold, analysts said.

Source: MarketWatch