WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold futures settled lower on Thursday, declining for a third straight session as the dollar continued to stay firm on stronger-than-expected U.S. service sector data pushed up concerns over sticky inflation.
Adding to Fed rate uncertainty, Boston Fed President Susan Collins warned on Wednesday that more policy tightening could be warranted.
The dollar index climbed to 105.16 before paring some gains. The index is up 0.15% at 105.02.
Gold futures for December ended lower by $.170 or about 0.1% at $1,942.50 an ounce.
Silver futures for December ended down $0.263 at $23.240 an ounce, while Copper futures for December settled at $3.7620 per pound, down $0.0240 from the previous close.
'Gold will continue to struggle as investors will happily take advantage of attractive yields with US government bonds. Non-interest bearing gold needs to see sustained weakness in the US labor market before it can muster up a rally,' says Edward Moya, Senior Market Analyst at OANDA.
Data from the Labor Department showed an unexpected decrease in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended September 2nd.
The report said initial jobless claims fell to 216,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week's revised level of 229,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to rise to 234,000 from the 228,000 originally reported for the previous week.
Jobless claims decreased for the fourth consecutive week, falling to their lowest level since a matching figure in the week ended February 11th.
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