Weak dollar pushes prices higher
Bullion metal prices ended higher on Thursday, 11 April 2013. Prices traded higher due to a weak US dollar. The weekly U.S. jobless claims report was released on Thursday morning and showed a bigger decline in claims than expected, but the data had little impact on the metals.
Gold for June delivery ended higher by $6.1 or 0.4% at $1,564.9 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday. Prices had shed almost 2% a day earlier.
May silver ended higher by 4 cents (0.2%) at $27.7 an ounce on Thursday.
In overnight news, Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser said in a speech in Tokyo the Fed should start winding down its bond-buying program (quantitative easing) and be completely done with it by the end of the year. The FOMC minutes released Wednesday showed Fed officials are debating on when to shut the bond-buying program down. This situation as rattled commodity market bulls. The QE of the past few years had helped drive many commodity market prices to record highs.
The Japanese stock market hit a four-year high on Thursday in the wake of the recent aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan. The U.S. dollar hit a four-year high versus the yen overnight as the BOJ works to devalue its currency. The European Central Bank has also hinted it may further lower its interest rates in an effort to devalue its currency.
In the currency market, the dollar index, which weighs the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies, fell by 0.3%.
At Wall Street, today's economic data showed that weekly initial claims were at 346,000, which was ahead of the consensus estimate which expected claims to come in at 365,000.
At the MCX, gold prices for June delivery closed lower by Rs 46 (0.16%) at Rs 29,184 per ten grams. Prices rose to a high of Rs 29,288 per 10 grams and fell to a low of Rs 29,055 per 10 grams during the day's trading.
At the MCX, silver prices for May delivery closed lower by Rs 101 (0.19%) at Rs 51,674/Kg. Prices opened at Rs 51,888/kg and fell to a low of Rs 51,215/Kg during the day's trading.
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