Gold price lower, heads for fourth-straight weekly loss

October 6, 2017

London (Oct 6)  Gold prices eased Friday, leaving the lead futures contract on track for a weekly loss, as investors awaited further clues on the Federal Reserve’s plan for U.S. interest rates from the key payrolls report due for release at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

Gold was poised for a weekly fall of around 1% after posting declines in each of the last three weeks.

December gold GCZ7, -0.17% was recently off $1.10, or 0.1%, to $1,272.10 an ounce. The exchange-traded SPDR Gold Shares GLD, +0.04%  was little changed in premarket action.

December silver SIZ7, +0.01% meanwhile, tried for a slim gain, last up less than 1 cent, or less than 0.1%, at $16.645 an ounce, while the silver ETF iShares Silver Trust SLV, +0.00% was up 0.2%.

Investors are eagerly anticipating Friday’s jobs report, which is expected to show the clearest sign of the effect of Hurricanes Irma, Harvey and Maria on job creation for September. Average estimates of economists polled by MarketWatch are for a gain of 75,000, compared with twice that figure last month, with the unemployment rate expected to hold steady at 4.4%.

See:  Hurricanes may make it look like U.S. ‘lost’ jobs for first time since 2010

Upbeat economic data are seen as bolstering the Federal Reserve’s case to increase rates once more in 2017, and likely into 2018.

Gold traders have been on the defensive as the dollar hit “its highest level on a trade-weighted basis since mid-August. This development has been driven by the very robust U.S. economic data released in recent days, which have caused the Fed rate hike expectations to pick up,” said Carsten Fritsch and the commodities analysts at Commerzbank in a commentary.

“What is more, stock markets are still extremely buoyant. The leading U.S. stock indices are achieving new record highs on a daily basis. It is hard for gold to gain any ground in this market environment,” he said.

The dollar, as gauged by the ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.07% which measures the greenback against a basket of six rivals, was up 0.1% at 93.96. It has risen 0.9% so far this week. A stronger dollar makes gold more expensive to buyers using other monetary units, and richer yields undercut the appeal of owning gold and other metals, which don’t bear a yield. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield TMUBMUSD10Y, +0.80% traded near 2.347% compared with 2.17% at the start of September.

On Comex, December copper HGZ7, -0.25%  slipped to $3.0435 a pound. January platinum PLF8, +0.15%  rose nearly 0.4% to $921.50 an ounce and December palladium PAZ7, +0.39%  added 0.7% to $943.30 an ounce.

MarketWatch

Silver Phoenix Twitter                 Silver Phoenix on Facebook