Gold futures settled slightly lower on Thursday, although the decline was just marginal as traders continued to remain optimistic that the Fed will not hurry to tighten its monetary policy.
Data released by the Labor Department on Wednesday showed that the nation’s consumer price index eased in July from the previous month, raising hopes that the central bank will not taper its bond-buying prorgram anytime soon.
The consumer price index rose 0.5% last month after climbing 0.9% in June. In the 12 months through July 2021, the CPI advanced 5.4%. The drop in the month-to-month inflation rate was the largest in 15 months.
The dollar index, which rose to 93.03 retreated a bit to 92.96 subsequently, but is still holding above the flat line.
Gold futures for December ended down by $1.50 or about 0.1% at $1,751.80 an ounce.
Silver futures for September ended lower by $0.372 at $23.116 an ounce, while Copper futures for September settled at $4.3600 per pound, down $0.0075 from Wednesday’s close.
In economic news, the Labor Department’s data showed initial jobless claims in the U.S. edged down to 375,000 in the week ended August 7th, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 387,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to dip to 375,000 from the 385,000 originally reported for the previous week.
Another report from the Labor Department showed U.S. producer prices increased more than expected in the month of July, surging up by 1%, matching the jump seen in the previous month. Economists had expected producer prices to climb by 0.6%.
With the bigger than expected monthly increase, the annual rate of growth in producer prices accelerated to 7.8% in July from 7.3% in June.
The year-over-year spike in producer prices reflected the largest advance since 12-month data were first calculated in November 2010.
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