Gold Price set for lowest close in five weeks

April 24, 2015

San Francisco (Apr 24)  Gold futures lost ground Friday, leaving the yellow metal on track for a weekly loss as investors awaited next week’s Federal Open Market Committee and looked to the U.S. dollar for near-term directional cues.

Gold for June delivery on Comex GCM5, -1.47%  fell $17.70, or 1.5%, to $1,176.60 an ounce. Tracking the most-active contracts, gold is on track for a roughly 2.2% weekly decline and they haven’t closed under $1,180 since March 19, according to FactSet data.

May silver SIK5, -0.94%  lost 15.9 cents, or 1%, to $15.675 an ounce, trading around 3.4% lower for the week.

“This week’s action in gold reflects indecision more than anything else,” said Katrina Lamb, head of investment strategy and research at MV Financial. “The pattern for the week as a whole was up one day, down the next.”

“Barring any X-factor that sends investors fleeing into safe havens, we expect indecision will continue to be the watchword until we have more clarity” on interest rates from the Federal Reserve, she said.

The FOMC will hold a two-day meeting next week that’ll conclude with a statement on April 29.

Gold prices remained lower after data early Friday showed orders for durable U.S. goods rose a seasonally-adjusted 4% in March, though a drop in shipments of so-called core capital goods offered another sign first-quarter gross domestic product is likely to be weak.

The dollar was lower versus most major rivals Friday, but failed to give gold a lift. A weaker U.S. dollar can be a positive for commodities priced in dollars because it makes them cheaper for nondollar users, while a stronger dollar can weigh on commodities. Since the end of last year, the ICE dollar index DXY, -0.42%  has climbed roughly 7.6%.

“The gold price at the moment is all about the currencies,” said Julian Phillips, founder of and contributor to GoldForecaster.com. “It’s been up and down in the euro and the dollar with a lower bias, but it is the dollar strength that counts.”

Mark O’Byrne, a director at GoldCore in Dublin, said weekly losses for gold “have been very marginal but are bearish technically.” That means that gold will likely “succumb to further weakness in the short term.”

In other metals trade, July platinum PLN5, -1.26%  fell $11.50, or 1%, to $1,125.20 an ounce, while June palladium PAM5, -0.01%  rose $1.65, or 0.2%, to $771.55 an ounce. May copper HGK5, +1.61%  rose 5.65 cents, or 2.1%, to $2.751 a pound. All three metals were set to log losses for the week.

Source: MarketWatch

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