Gold Prices Fall as Dollar Bounces Off Lows

Investing.com – Gold prices eased from 17-month highs after the dollar moved off session lows as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin attempted to resolve uncertainty surrounding his comments earlier this week on dollar.

for February delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell by $13.30, or 0.98%, to $1,349.60 a troy ounce.

“Well, I think you know, people have misinterpreted some of my comments about the dollar this week,” Mnuchin told Yahoo Finance. “I was very clear I’m not making comments about where the dollar is in the short term. I’m not going to make comments about where the stock market would be. But I respect what the president said.” That comes a day after President Donald Trump had said that dollar “will get stronger and stronger.”

The dollar remained on track to post weekly loess, however, amid data showing durable goods and US economic growth undershot economists’ forecasts.

Dollar-denominated assets such as gold are sensitive to moves in the dollar – a rise in the dollar makes gold more expensive for holders of foreign currency and thus, reduces demand.

Weaker economic data, meanwhile, did little to support safe-haven demand as the US economy cooled in the fourth quarter of the year, while durable goods fell short of economists’ estimates.

increased at a 2.6% annual rate in the October-December period, the Commerce Department said on Friday. That was below economists’ forecast for 3% growth.

The Commerce Department in a separate report said excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, fell 0.3% in December after an upwardly revised 0.2% increase in November.

Yet despite the fourth quarter GDP miss, RBC said the data showed exports and imports were rose significantly on the quarter, rising 6.9% and 13.9%, respectively, and noting that strong import growth is a sign of a strong domestic environment.

In other precious metal trade, fell 1.31% to $17.57 a troy ounce, while fell 1.46% to $1,017.

fell 0.58% to $3.198, while rose 2.52% to $3.53.

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