WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold futures settled lower on Thursday as the dollar climbed up ahead of the Jackson Hole Symposium, recovering well from recent losses.
The symposium will feature meetings by global central bank leaders as well as a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday that could impact the outlook for interest rates.
The dollar index climbed to 103.94, gaining about 0.5%.
Gold futures for December settled with a small gain of $1.00 at $1,947.10 an ounce.
Silver futures for September ended lower by $0.162 at $24.230 an ounce, while Copper futures for September ended down $0.0375 at $3.7710 per pound.
On the U.S. economic front, data from the Commerce Department showed durable goods orders plunged by 5.2% in July after surging by a revised 4.4% in June. Economists had expected durable goods orders to slump by 4% compared to the 4.6% jump that had been reported for the previous month.
Excluding a pullback in orders for transportation equipment, durable goods orders rose by 0.5% in July after inching up by 0.2% in June. Ex-transportation orders were expected to edge up by 0.2%.
Meanwhile, data from the Labor Department said initial jobless claims slipped to 230,000 in the week ended August 19th, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised level of 240,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to inch up to 240,000 from the 239,000 originally reported for the previous week.
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