Gold futures fell Friday, on track for a five-day losing streak after ending the previous session at its lowest since Dec. 30.
Price action
-
Gold for April delivery
GC00,
-0.23% GCJ23,
-0.23%
fell $2.60, or 0.1%, to $1,824.20 an ounce on Comex, on track for a 1.4% weekly decline. -
March silver
SIH23,
-1.32%
fell 1.2% to $21.05 an ounce. -
April platinum
PLJ23,
-1.96%
was down 2.1% at $926 an ounce, while March palladium
PAH23,
-2.53%
declined 1.1% to $1,413.50 an ounce. -
March copper
HGH23,
-0.76%
was down 1.1% to $4.015 a pound.
Market drivers
Treasury yields and the dollar
DXY,
have risen since the beginning of February as market participants have boosted expectations for Fed interest-rate increases. Rising yields raise the opportunity cost of holding nonyielding assets like gold, while a stronger dollar makes commodities priced in the unit more expensive to users of other currencies.
“The evolving new narrative of more robust U.S. growth, payrolls, retail sales, and the additional Fed response required to tame the rude health of the U.S. economy sees investors catching up to the Fed ‘higher for longer,’ which has hurt gold,” Stephen Innes, managing partner of SPI Asset Management, told MarketWatch in an email.
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Innes sees potential for a shift toward cooler economic data in favor of gold when February releases on U.S. consumption, labor and inflation come in a few weeks, “but we need that recession angst back to nudge forward market-based rate-cut expectations,” he said.
