Gold Futures Slide; Dollar Bid Higher
Gold prices fell in New York Thursday as new economic data boosted the value of the dollar.
Benchmark bullion futures were marked down $18.90 at $886.10 an ounce in recent action on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The government says the economy grew more than was previously believed during the first quarter, up 0.9% vs. 0.6% in the initial estimate. That prompted traders to bid up the value of the dollar, hitting the price of gold, which tends to move in the opposite direction to that of the U.S. currency.
The
SPDR Gold Trust
(GLD) - Get Report
, which holds inventories of bullion bars, was sliding 2.8%.
As for the precious metals patch,
Barrick Gold
(ABX)
was losing 3.3%, while
Goldcorp
(GG)
was off 2.4%.
In the foreign-exchange market, one euro was buying $1.553 vs. $1.5633 on Wednesday. One dollar was trading for 105.4 Japanese yen, up from 104.7 yen previously. The British pound was selling for $1.9752, down from $1.9798.
The
CurrencyShares Euro Trust
(FXE) - Get Report
and the
CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust
(FXY) - Get Report
were declining 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively. The
CurrencyShares British Pound Sterling
(FXB) - Get Report
was down 0.2%.