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Gold Prices Settle Marginally Lower; Silver Prices also Slip

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Gold prices recovered from earlier losses to settle marginally lower on Friday and posted best weekly performance in almost two years as the metal’s inflation-hedge appeal was burnished after the Silver prices also edged lower in trading on Friday.

Gold futures for August delivery slipped 0.2% or $2.30 to settle at $1,277.60 an ounce while spot gold was last down 0.41% to $1,279.36 an ounce.

For the week, gold futures gained 5.4%.

Silver futures were last down 0.73% to $19.81 an ounce.

Earlier during the day, (during Asian trading session), the metal prices fell sharply as the U.S. dollar strengthened while  technical selling also ensued after the metal failed to cross its key resistance level of $1,300 an ounce.

According to Reuters, traders said that the demand for physical gold in Asia also cooled off as buyers remained in sidelines after the metal clocked gains in last four sessions.

On Wednesday, Bernanke said that the asset purchases program might continue for the time being. Separately, the Fed’s minutes also showed that some policymakers were still not convinced that the U.S. labor was strong enough to warrant immediate pullback of the assets purchase program.

“There is also a lot of division within the Fed in terms of what the best approach towards bond-buying tapering is, so we may see the market jumping around as a result of that,” said Daniel Smith, an analyst at Standard Chartered Bank, according to Reuters.

A data provided by Reuters showed that the holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSE: GLD), the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, remained unchanged at 30.192 million ounces on Thursday. The fund’s holdings are now at 4 ½ year low level.

 








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edliston
Post Written By: Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.

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Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing.

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