Gold futures settled lower on Thursday despite having edged up earlier in the session, after Treasury yields dropped as bond selloff abated.<\/p>\n
A weaker dollar contributed as well to the yellow metal’s uptick earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
The dollar index dropped to 106.44, coming off from a high of 106.86.<\/p>\n
Gold futures for December ended lower by $3.00 at $1,831.80 an ounce.<\/p>\n
Silver futures for December ended down $0.127 at $21.019 an ounce, while Copper futures for December settled at $3.5520 per pound, down $0.0370 from the previous close.<\/p>\n
Data released by the Labor Department today showed a slight uptick in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended September 30th.<\/p>\n
The report said initial jobless claims crept up to 207,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 205,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to rise to 210,000 from the 204,000 originally reported for the previous week.<\/p>\n
“Eventually the surging cost of capital will support a softening of the labor market, but it doesn’t seem like that will be reflected in tomorrow’s report,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA.<\/p>\n
“Gold prices are softer after another weekly jobless claims report refused to show a labor market slowdown has arrived. Jobless claims are still at historically low levels and that will keep Fed officials sticking to the hawkish script,” says Moya. <\/p>\n
“Wall Street is still mostly maintaining a bearish stance for equities, which should eventually lead to safe-haven flows for gold. Gold just needs the peak in rates in place but we might not have a clear picture until the release of both Friday’s US jobs report and the October 12th inflation data,” he adds.<\/p>\n
The Labor Department’s non-farm payroll data tomorrow is expected to show employment increased by 170,000 jobs in September after climbing by 187,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate is expected to edge down to 3.7% from 3.8%. <\/p>\n