Traders look to the week's key economic data points
Bullion prices ended lower on Monday, 06 January 2014. Gold futures settled with a slight loss on Monday, their first in three trading sessions, after experiencing a sudden, large but brief drop in prices early on in the Comex trading session. Traders looked to the week's key economic data points for cues on gold's direction.
Gold for February delivery shed 60 cents, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,238 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange after tallying a gain of 3% over the past two trading sessions.
Silver spent most of the session trading lower. March silver fell nearly 11 cents, or 0.5%, by the close to $20.10 an ounce
For many traders and investors, this was their first day back at work after a long holiday break. Later this week the headline risk picks up, as the Federal Reserve's FOMC minutes are out Wednesday afternoon, while the European Central Bank holds its monthly meeting on Thursday and the U.S. employment report is out on Friday.
There is also important economic data coming out of China later this week, including trade and inflation reports. Last week, a disappointing purchasing managers index in China was reported, which has helped to sink the Chinese stock market the past few sessions. The spike in short-term Chinese interest rates in late December is still on traders' minds. China remains an increasingly important cog in the collective world economy.
U.S. economic data released Monday included manufacturers' shipments and orders, the ISM non-manufacturing report, and the global services purchasing managers index. These reports had no significant impact on the precious metals markets.
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The ISM Non-manufacturing Index for December fell to 53.0 from 53.9 while the consensus expected the index to increase to 54.6. Business activities and production levels decelerated slightly as the respective index fell to 55.2 from November's 55.5. November factory orders rose 1.8% after falling an upwardly revised -0.5% (from -0.9%). The consensus expected orders to increase 1.7%. As the advance report already hinted at, nearly the entire gain in factory orders resulted from strong demand for durable goods orders. Durable goods orders rose 3.4%, which was down slightly from the 3.5% gain reported in the advance report. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders rose a solid 1.2%.
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