Investing.com — Gold prices fell in Asian trading on Thursday, led by dollar strength and U.S. Treasury yields, while traders remained tense ahead of key economic data likely to play a role in interest rates.
The price rose to a high in more than two weeks, as fears of prolonged high US interest rates caused traders to largely maintain a preference for the dollar. Benchmark US also rose this week.
This trend dissipated some of the gold flow, pushing the yellow metal further away from last week’s record highs. The yellow metal also lost most of its gains for the week.
fell 0.2% to $2,332.98 per ounce, while they fell 0.4% to $2,331.60 per ounce just before their June 1 expiration.
The gold price is under pressure and there are more interest rate signals
The yellow metal has been under pressure on expectations of more US economic data in the coming days, which will likely play a role in the interest rate outlook.
A revised reading of the first quarter data will be released later on Thursday and is likely to show some resilience in the economy. The strong economy also gives the Federal Reserve more leeway to keep interest rates high for longer.
More closely monitored will be the data, which will be released on Friday. This value is the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge.
The data prints come after several Fed officials warned that the bank had little confidence to cut rates. This also caused traders to price in their expectations for a September rate cut.
The prospect of high interest rates for an extended period bodes ill for gold and other precious metals as it drives up the opportunity cost of investing in the yellow metal.
Other precious metals also fell on this idea. fell 0.6% to $1,040.15 per ounce, while it fell almost 2% to $31,767 per ounce.
The copper rally is cooling down, more Chinese signals were expected
In industrial metals, prices fell further from recent record highs on Thursday as the speculative frenzy cooled and traders looked for more demand signals for key economic data from China, the world’s biggest copper importer.
The benchmark on the London Metal Exchange fell 1.3% to $10,346.50 per tonne, while the index fell 1.1% in one month to $4.7237 per pound.
from China is expected on Friday and is expected to provide more clues about business activity in the country, which in turn is expected to help traders better gauge the outlook for copper demand.
