Prices register weekly gains though
Bullion metals ended moderately lower on Friday, 06 June 2014. Gold futures settled lower on Friday, but scored a modest gain on the week after a U.S. jobs report largely met market expectations.
Gold for August delivery shed 80 cents, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,252.50 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Tracking the most-active contracts, prices were up roughly 0.5% for the week.
July silver fell 8 cents, or 0.4%, to $19 an ounce. Prices were up about 1.7% for the week.
Friday morning's U.S. employment report for May showed a slightly higher than expected rise of 217,000 in non-farm payrolls. The key in the report was forecast to rise by 210,000. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.3%.
The U.S. stock markets are hovering at record or multi-year highs to end the trading week. Meantime, European stocks and government bonds have rallied late this week. A new and aggressive European Central Bank monetary policy stimulus package announced Thursday and dovish corresponding remarks from ECB president Mario Draghi were deemed stock market and European bond market bullish. Worries about stagnant European Union economic growth and deflationary price pressures forced the hand of the central bank. The ECB move on Thursday has bolstered the notions of some in the market place that the U.S. Federal Reserve may be forced to back off its plan of tapering its quantitative easing.
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