Gold futures on Friday suffered from their first decline in six sessions, giving up a year-to-date advance, as some strength in the U.S. dollar helped to pull investment interest away from the precious metal.
But prices still scored a gain of roughly 2.4% for the week, after reaching a four-month closing high on Thursday.
Gold for December delivery lost $4.40, or 0.4%, to settle at $1,183.10 U.S. an ounce on Comex, with prices now down about $1 year to date.
The multi-month settlement high on Thursday came after a recent slide in the dollar on the back of expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve will delay its first rate hike in almost a decade, until 2016.
However, on Friday the U.S. currency found some renewed strength as investors assessed the impact of the latest inflation reading — out during Thursday’s session — that showed core inflation is inching closer to the Fed’s target of 2%. That gave gold an excuse to pull back after five straight sessions of gains.
Data Friday was mixed, with U.S. industrial production in September falling for a second straight month and consumer sentiment up in October after three months of declines.
Against that backdrop, the ICE dollar index was up 0.2%. Metals traded in dollars tend to fall on jumps in the U.S. currency, as they get more expensive to buy for holders of other currencies.
In other metals, silver for December fell five cents, or 0.3%, to $16.114 U.S. an ounce—about 1.9% higher for the week. Copper for the same month fell two cents, or 0.8%, to $2.404 U.S. a pound, for a weekly loss of about 0.4%.
January platinum rose $16.70, or 1.7%, to $1,022.70 U.S. an ounce—up about 4.3% on the week, and December palladium shed $5.60, or 0.8%, to $699.40 U.S. an ounce, for a weekly loss of 1.2%.
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