Gold Creeps Higher, Silver Stalls, as Stocks Jump on US Productivity Reading
From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...
Gold climbed as high as $1097.42 in after-hours US "access" trade late Wednesday, falling in Asian trade Thursday to $1083.70 and then spiking back up to $1093.95 early in London.
Gold then chopped its way lower for most of US dealing, and ended the day with a gain of 0.2%.
The Gold Price in Euros rose to €733 an ounce.
Platinum lost $3 to $1355.50, and copper fell a few cents to about $2.95. Silver fell as low as $17.20 in Asia before it rebounded to $17.50 by 09:00 EST in New York, but it also fell off into the close and ended the day unchanged.
Gold Mining and silver equities traded mixed throughout North American trade and ended with slight gains.
Oil fell back below $80 as the US Dollar index halted Wednesday's plunge and ended with a slight gain after the European Central Bank and Bank of England left interest rates unchanged in their monthly policy meetings.
Treasuries rose slightly ahead of Friday's jobs data and next week's bond auctions.
The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose roughly 2% on better than expected earnings reports, plus a strong third-quarter US Productivity report – up 9.5% – as well as the comfort of continued low interest rates from the Federal Reserve for an "extended period".
Friday at 08:30 EST brings October's official US jobs data. Non-farm Payrolls are expected down 175,000 with the Unemployment Rate up at 9.9%.
Hourly Earnings are expected to show a 0.1% rise, and the Average Workweek is expected at 33.1 hours.
Then at 10:00 comes the Wholesale Inventories report for September, expected down 1.0%, and at 14:00 comes US Consumer Credit data for September, expected to show a $10 billion contraction.
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