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Gold prices stabilized after a sharp retreat on Thursday, taking a firmer dollar in its stride as investors looked forward to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s stance on tapering economic support at its Jackson Hole symposium.

· Spot gold rose 0.1% to $1,792.01 per ounce by 1:38 p.m. ET.

· U.S. gold futures settled up 0.2% at $1,795.20.

· Bullion slipped as much as 1.2% and below the key $1,800 mark on Wednesday as a stronger dollar dented its appeal.

· Investors are keenly eying Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech during Friday’s symposium, on the heels of suggestions from St. Louis Fed President James Bullard that the U.S. central bank should end bond buying by early next year.

· “The probability most people are looking at is that the Fed signals a stronger economy and some tapering in the next year or two years, and that’s hanging over the gold market,” said Jeffrey Christian, managing partner at CPM Group.

A Fed interest rate hike would dull bullion’s appeal compared with interest-earning assets.

Christian partly attributed gold’s gains to political tensions in Afghanistan after the U.S. Pentagon Press Secretary said an explosion at the Kabul airport was part of a complex attack resulting in casualties.

· Gold’s modest gains came despite Bullard’s comments adding to the dollar’s strength and pushing benchmark Treasury yields up. Higher yields increase the opportunity cost of bullion, which pays no interest.

· “While gold is going to struggle in an environment where stimulus is eventually removed from the table, interest rates are still going to be hard to come by as economic uncertainties will likely persist and that should still see some strong demand for bullion,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA.

· Elsewhere, silver fell 1.4% to $23.52 an ounce.

· Platinum slipped 1.7% to $979.53.

· Palladium shed 1.3% to $2,397.67.

· U.S. corporate profits soar in second quarter; economic growth raised

· US jobless claims rise for first time in five weeks

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose for the first time in five weeks even though the economy and job market have been recovering briskly from the coronavirus pandemic.

Jobless claims edged up by 4,000 to 353,000 from a pandemic low 349,000 a week earlier, the Labor Department reported this morning. However, the four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, fell by 11,500 to 366,500—lowest since mid-March 2020 when the coronavirus was beginning to slam the U.S.

· U.S. August auto sales to fall as supply constraints continue - J.D. Power, LMC Automotive

Retail sales of new vehicles are expected to fall 14.3% to 987,100 in August from a year earlier, they said in a report released on Thursday.

· Fed's Powell likely to give few hints on bond-buying taper timeline

· Fed hawks circle before Powell speech as they push for bond taper

“We probably don’t need the asset purchases at this point,” St. Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard said on CNBC on Thursday, repeating his call for the Fed to start trimming its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases soon and end the program by early next year.

Bullard, along with Kansas City Fed president Esther George and Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan, also all downplayed the impact of the Delta variant in separate interviews, with George and Kaplan saying their business contacts were telling them the economic effects remained limited.

· Fed's Kaplan: don't see anything to change '22 rates liftoff view

Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert Kaplan suggested on Thursday that he continues to expect the Fed to start raising interest rates next year, after what he hopes to be an eight-month-long process of phasing out its monthly asset purchases, starting in October.

· Dozens of civilians, at least 13 U.S. troops killed in Kabul airport attack

Islamic State struck the crowded gates of Kabul airport in a suicide bomb attack on Thursday, killing scores of civilians and at least 13 U.S. troops, disrupting the airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans desperate to flee.

Kabul health officials were quoted as saying 60 civilians were killed. Video shot by Afghan journalists showed dozens of bodies strewn around a canal on the edge of the airport. At least two blasts rocked the area, witnesses said.

· Biden vows to complete Afghanistan evacuation, hunt down ISIS leaders after Kabul attack

President Joe Biden on Thursday vowed to complete the evacuation of Americans and their allies from Afghanistan after a deadly terror attack near Kabul’s airport took the lives of more than a dozen U.S. service members and many Afghans.

· ANALYSIS-China's property crackdown stalks credit markets

China’s push to wean property developers from excessive borrowing is spilling over into loan losses at banks and pain in credit markets as cash-strapped builders fall into distress, raising the risk of fallout rippling across the economy.

· COVID-19 UPDATES:

· U.S. Covid cases show signs of slowing, even as fatalities surge again

Covid cases are still on the rise in the U.S., but the pace of infections is showing signs of slowing, especially in some of the states that have been hit hardest by the delta variant.

Though cases have climbed to their highest level since January at an average of 152,000 per day over the last week, the pace of the rise in new infections has substantially slowed over the last two weeks, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows. New cases increased by 11% over the last week, almost a third of the seven-day jump of 30% just two weeks ago, according to the data.

· Covid — not vaccinations — presents biggest blood clot risk, large study finds

· THIANLAND HIT TOP GLOBAL NEW CASES RANK: NO.12

Reference: CNBC, Business Report, Reuters, Worldometers