Stock Market Watch

Gold Prices Hover Around $1,360 Mark, Silver Prices Slip

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Gold prices eased during Asian trading hours on Friday as the U.S. dollar gained traction against rival currencies. Silver prices also slipped in early trading on Friday.

At last check, gold futures for December delivery inched up 0.09% to $1,362.10 an ounce  while spot gold edged down 0.3% t0 $1,361.52 an ounce.

Still, the metal is on course to post its best weekly performance in a month.

Gold futures climbed about 2% on Thursday as panic sell-off in equity markets prompted investors to seek safety in safe-haven bets.

However, experts fear that the metal’s prices could soon fall amid rising possibility that the Federal Reserve might announce the pullback of the bond purchase program in coming months.

On Thursday, the Labor Department’s weekly job report showed that first time jobless claims fell to near six year low. The Fed’s ongoing bond purchase program is explicitly tied to an improvement in the labor market.

“We will get fresh QE tapering indications in the next Fed meeting in September. The tapering is likely going to start taking effect then and gold will fall again,” said Mark Keenan, cross-commodity research strategist at Societe Generale in Singapore, according to Reuters.

On Friday, the metal also received some support from short coverings. The metal breached several key resistance levels in the previous session.

A  data provided by Reuters showed that the holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSE: GLD), the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, fell on Thursday after posting gains on Wednesday. The fund’s holdings at a four year low level.

The dollar Index was last up 0.06% to 81.23.

Silver futures fell 0.22% to $22.94 an ounce.

In pre-market trading, the iShares Silver Trust (ETF) (NYSE: SLV) was down 0.45%, and the ProShares Ultra Silver (ETF) (NYSE: AGQ) was down 1%.








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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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