The gold price continued to range-trade on Thursday afternoon, making modest gains on a slightly weaker dollar and mixed messages out of Greece on the state of bailout negotiations.
Spot gold was last at $1,188.90/1,189.70 per ounce, up $1.70 on Wednesday’s close and having traded in an intraday range of $12 so far.
The dollar has pulled back from one-month highs hit earlier this week following weaker-than-expected US jobless claims at 282,000 against consensus at 271,000.
There are also mixed messages over the Greek debt crisis. German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble and IMF chief Christine Lagarde have both said that more work needs to be done, following comments from Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who declared publicly that Greece is on the “final stretch” to secure the aid it needs.
Once again on Thursday, Greek officials were optimistic about a prospective deal being completed by the end of the week, while those on the creditor side were more cautious.
With the data calendar quiet on Thursday, the market is looking ahead to the second revision of US GDP growth in the first quarter on Friday, which could be revised into negative territory.
The previous estimate significantly undershot expectations at growth of just 0.2 percent. Friday’s figure might be lowered to contraction of 0.7 percent.
“Although the prospect of a weaker dollar and higher gold prices does not seem to be in vogue now, we think that a worse-than-expected revision to first-quarter US GDP on Friday could start swinging the pendulum on both markets the other way,” INTL FCStone’s Ed Meir said.
In other metals, silver was last three cents higher at $16.68/16.73 per ounce while platinum was up $1 at $1,114/1,119 and palladium was unchanged at $781/786.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)
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