WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold futures rallied Friday despite speculation the Federal Reserve will maintain its projection for four interest rate hikes by the end of next year.
'That's achievable if we continue to run good quality (data),' outgoing Fed Vice President Stanley Fischer said. 'With the global economy coming up for the first time and having faster growth in the global economy than we expected, there's a good chance of that.'
Dec. gold settled at $1,304.60/oz, up $8.10, or 0.6%. Gold was up 2.3% this week.
Data showed this morning that U.S. consumer price index rose only 0.5% last month, due mostly to a temporary spike in gas prices after Hurricane Harvey. The closely watched core CPI was up only 0.1%, leaving the annnual rate of inflation at only 1.7%.
That's below the Fed's 2% target for annual inflation.
Economists expected consumer prices to have risen 0.6% in September, compared with 0.4% in August, and core CPI at 0.2%.
But other economic news was more encouraging. U.S. retail sales jumped 1.6% in September.
The University of Michigan also released a report showing an unexpected improvement in consumer sentiment in the month of October.
With the unexpected increase, the consumer sentiment index surged up to its highest level reaching 103.8 in January of 2004.
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