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Gold futures skidded lower Friday morning, pressured below $1,800 by a pickup in the U.S. dollar and a rise in bond yields that were undercutting demand for the precious metals.
Some analysts say that silver and gold this week have been pressured by an uptick in the dollar, which has risen 0.3% so far this week, as measured by the ICE U.S. Dollar Index
DXY,
a weighted gauge of the buck against a half-dozen currencies. The 10-year Treasury note yield
TMUBMUSD10Y,
meanwhile, was up around 1.26% from 1.21% on Thursday.
Against the backdrop, December gold
GCZ21,
GC00,
was trading $8.30, or 0.5%, lower, at $1,800.50 an ounce, after declining 0.3% on Thursday. For the week, gold is headed forums decline of 0.9%, which would mark its steepest weekly slump since the period ended June 18 when it fell 5.88%.
“The strength of the US dollar is keeping the pressure on safe havens like gold with the precious metal continuing to drop on Friday,” wrote Pierre Veyret, technical analyst at ActivTrades in a daily research report.
Gold also has been under pressure as equity markets have been trading near record highs, despite concerns about the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant of COVID-19 in many countries.
Investors will weigh the health of the economic recovery from the pandemic after the U.S. jobs report is released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal estimate that 845,000 jobs were created last month, similar to June’s total, and that the unemployment rate fell to 5.7%.
Meanwhile, silver for September delivery
SIU21,
SI00,
was trading 22 cents, or 0.9%, lower at $25.07 an ounce, following a 0.7% decline on Thursday. Silver is headed for a weekly decline of nearly 2%.
