WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold prices are lower Thursday morning, extending losses to a seventh straight session amid growing speculation about U.S. interest rate hikes.
Traders are now looking ahead the ECB President Mario Draghi's monthly news conference. The European Central Bank has left its key lending rate unchanged at 0.05 percent, but markets are more interested in whether Draghi will hint that additional stimulus is forthcoming.
Gold futures for December delivery are down $1.60 or 0.14 percent at $1,144.10 an ounce.
On Wednesday, gold futures ended down $22.00 or 1.9 percent at $1,145.70 an ounce, extending losses to a sixth successive session.
Gold declined to a low of $1,137.10 intraday, its lowest level since April 2010.
Strong equity markets, a strengthening dollar amid diverging interest rate outlooks for the U.S. and Europe and data showing a bigger than expected addition in U.S. private sector jobs dragged down the yellow metal.
Traders largely shrugged off reports showing slowing pace of growth in services sector activity in the U.S. and China.
In economic news from the eurozone, German factory orders were up 0.8 percent month-on-month in September, coming back fairly strongly after recording a 4.2 percent decline in the preceding month. However, the increase in September fell short of forecasts for a 2.2 percent expansion.
Silver for December delivery is down $0.181 or 1.17 percent at $15.262 an ounce, near a four-year low of $15.120 on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, copper is down $0.008 or 0.30 percent at $3.000 per pound.
The Bank of England today kept its interest rate unchanged at a historic-low of 0.5 percent and quantitative easing at GBP 375 billion as widely expected by economists.
At 8:30 am ET, the U.S. Labor Department will release its jobless claims report for the week ended November 1st.
Around the same time, the Labor Department will come out with its advance estimate of third quarter productivity and costs.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's said in its Economic Outlook released today that global growth is expected to accelerate gradually if countries implement growth supportive policies.
The OECD projects global GDP growth to reach a 3.3 percent rate in 2014 before accelerating to 3.7 percent in 2015 and 3.9 percent in 2016.
The United States is expected to expand 2.2 percent this year and around 3 percent in 2015 and 2016. Growth in the euro area is expected to pick up slowly, from 0.8 percent in 2014 to 1.1 percent in 2015 and 1.7 percent in 2016.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX