• Gold prices traded in a narrow range on Friday, below the previous session’s high, as the dollar steadied amid caution ahead of U.S. jobs data later in the day.
Spot gold was mostly unchanged at $1,275.82 per ounce at 0657 GMT, and was on track for its first weekly gain in three. It hit its highest in about two weeks at $1,284.10 in the previous session.
U.S. gold for December delivery dipped 0.1 percent to $1,276.50.
• The dollar held steady versus a basket of currencies on Friday, as focus shifted to U.S. jobs data, with President Donald Trump’s nomination of Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell to be the next Fed chair coming as no surprise.
The greenback had slipped on Thursday after Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives released proposals to overhaul the tax code.
• “Gold seems to be broadly flat. The announcement of Jerome Powell as the new Fed Chair was broadly in line with expectations,” said John Sharma, an economist with National Australia Bank.
“Markets are waiting for the U.S. payrolls data. A strong result here would not be supportive of gold.”
• “The general trend for gold over the last week has been positive, but the market will need to find a catalyst within the host of data released tonight to push through the strong resistance at $1280,” MKS PAMP analyst Tim Brown wrote in a note.
“On the downside, we should see close support at the 100-day moving average at $1,275.”
• Spot gold looks neutral in a narrow range of $1,263-$1,281 per ounce, and an escape could suggest a direction, according to Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.
• In other precious metals, spot silver inched 0.1 percent lower to $17.09 an ounce and platinum eased 0.3 percent to $921.74 while palladium was up 0.1 percent at $997.
• Long-term outlook for gold remains positive, despite the yellow metal trading near three-week lows on Thursday, said ABN Amro.
The reason is the U.S. dollar, which the Dutch bank projects will decline next year and boost gold.
“The longer-term trend in gold prices is positive, mainly because we are negative on the U.S. dollar. Our forecast for the end of 2018 is USD 1,450 per ounce,” ABN Amro said in its October Commodity Update.
More good news from the bank is that gold will end the year at its key psychological level of $1,300, wrote Georgette Boele, the bank’s senior precious metals & diamond analyst.
“[This fall] gold prices dropped from USD 1,357 per ounce to USD 1,260 per ounce on 6 October mainly because of higher U.S. nominal and U.S. real yields,” Boele said. “The gold price decline stopped just above the 200-day moving average which is a positive signal. We keep our year-end 2017 forecast at USD 1,300 per ounce.”
• Higher bond yields and a stronger U.S. dollar will weigh heavily on gold prices in early 2018, according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
In a report Monday, the bank pared back its expectations for gold in the first quarter of 2018. The analysts now see gold averaging $1,250 an ounce in the first three months of the new year, down from their previous estimate for prices to average $1,400 an ounce.
Reference: Reuters, Kitco
Thai
Eng