• Gold prices have extended losses into a second session as the US dollar strengthened and as investors viewed the testimony from former US FBI director James Comey as containing no significant surprises.
• Investors still await the outcome of Britain's national election and opinion polls on the eve of the election showed Theresa May's Conservative Party leading between 5 and 12 percentage points over the main opposition Labour Party, suggesting she would increase her majority.
• Earlier in the session, the euro declined after the European Central Bank cut its forecasts for inflation and said that policymakers had not discussed scaling back its massive bond-buying program.
• Spot gold was down 0.7 per cent at $US1,277.95 an ounce by 4:04 pm Thursday EDT (0604 Friday AEST). US gold futures for August delivery shed 1.1 per cent to settle at $US1,279.50.
• Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee he believed President Donald Trump had directed him to drop a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of the broader Russia investigation. However, he did not make any major new revelations about alleged links between Trump or his associates and Russia.
• Gold prices ended the U.S. day session solidly lower on some more profit taking and technical chart consolidation after hitting a seven-week high earlier this week. Three major marketplace occurrences Thursday failed to move the markets in a significant manner.
• Technically, August gold futures prices closed nearer the session low today. The gold bulls still have the overall near-term technical advantage. Prices are in a four-week-old uptrend on the daily bar chart. Gold bulls' next upside near-term price breakout objective is to produce a close above solid technical resistance at $1,300.00. Bears' next near-term downside price breakout objective is pushing prices below solid technical support at $1,250.00. First resistance is seen at today’s high of $1,291.50 and then at $1,300.00. First support is seen at today’s low of $1,273.50 and then at 1,260.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.5
• "One of the big drivers behind gold's move is the dollar catching a little bit of its footing ... if you look at the way gold is trading, until it breaks out of that recent trend around the $US1,270-$US1,275 area and get back into $US1,260s it's hard to be bearish," said Joshua Graves, markets strategist at RJO Futures
"I think the expectation going into the trade today was that gold could catch a bid with the Comey testimony and the uncertainty of the ECB meeting, so if you look at where gold is trending in the future, I think we will we see a run back to that $US1,300 level. There just might need to be more geopolitical tension."
• Some investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve policy meeting next week where a rate hike is widely expected.
• Traders are expecting a 99.6% probability of a U.S. interest rate increase in June, CME Group’s FedWatch showed.
• UBS strategist Joni Teves, however, said that a growing list of global uncertainties along with macro forces are expected to push gold higher, so any dips would be an opportunity to build or add to positions.
• Meanwhile, July silver SIN7, +0.01% fell 20.6 cents, or 1.2%, at $17.414 an ounce in Thursday trading.
Reference: Business News, Market Watch, Kitco
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