Traders look ahead to the week's economic events
Bullion prices ended steady on Tuesday, 03 June 2014 at Comex. Gold prices ended the U.S. day session near steady levels but hit another four-month low early on with traders looking ahead to the week's economic events, including a European Central Bank meeting and the monthly U.S. nonfarm payrolls report.
Gold for August tacked on 50 cents to settle at $1,244.50 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices had tallied a loss of roughly 4%, or just over $50 an ounce, over the past six trading sessions.
July silver meanwhile, gained over 2 cents, or 0.1%, on Tuesday to close at $18.76 an ounce, extending its gain from a day earlier, which followed a five-session decline.
The gold market is closely watching the Thursday ECB meeting results, which could be a mixed bag for gold. In news Tuesday the rate of consumer price inflation in the European Union was up 0.5%, year-on-year, in May. That was the lowest reading in four years. A figure of up 0.7% was expected by the market place. Unemployment in the EU was also reported Tuesday, coming in at 11.7% in April from 11.8% in March. Thursday's monthly monetary policy meeting of the ECB is widely believed to see the bank announcing further monetary policy stimulus measures. Recent weak European Union economic data and fears of deflation setting in for the EU are solid reasons for the ECB to make a move next week. Such would be another bearish below to the Euro currency.
U.S. economic data released Tuesday included the ISM New York report on business, manufacturers' shipments and inventories, the IBD/TIPP economic optimism index, the global manufacturing PMI, and domestic auto sales. None of this data had a significant impact on precious metals prices.
The big U.S. data point of a busy data week is Friday's Labor Department employment situation report for May. The early forecast is for non-farm payrolls to have increased 215,000 in the report.
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