Gold Extends Losses on Dollar Strength

The price of gold slipped on Friday, with a rally for the U.S. dollar seeing the precious metal extend its week-to-date losses to 1.6%.

Gold was down 0.31% at $1,221.41 a troy ounce in midmorning trade in London.

The price of copper was also lower, with the base metal dropping 0.2% to $5,837 a metric ton at the end of a week which has seen a sharp rise in London Metal Exchange on-warrant inventories.

The stronger dollar and a surge in U.S. bond yields over the past week both proved negative for gold, Commerzbank said in a morning note.

The WSJ Dollar Index, which measures the currency against a basket of other currencies, was 0.17% higher at 88.32 and up 0.67% week-to-date. A stronger dollar tends to weigh on dollar-denominated metals.

Gold's weakness also reflected a strong forecast for U.S. nonfarm jobs figures, due later Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect firms added 174,000 jobs in June. That "looks like a very strong number for this point in the cycle," said Nitesh Shah, commodities strategist at ETF Securities.

With nonfarm figures often viewed as a bellwether for future Federal Reserve policy, "if the results match that forecast number, I think it would strengthen the Fed's rate raise case and extend today's [gold] losses," Mr. Shah said.

After Friday's jobs figures, investor attention will turn to a handful of key economic data releases scheduled for next week. Chinese consumer-price index numbers and monetary supply figures, due Monday and Tuesday respectively, will update traders on the health of the Chinese economy amid growing fears of an economic slowdown in the run-up to the country's regime change in October.

Later in the week, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen is set to testify before Congress.

Among base metals, aluminum was up 0.1% at $1,942 a metric ton, zinc rose 0.07% to $2,783 a metric ton, lead rose 0.07% to $2,287.50 a metric ton, tin fell 0.25% to $19,900 a metric ton and nickel was down 0.99% at $9,010 a metric ton.

Among precious metals, platinum was down 0.55% at $906.50 a troy ounce, palladium rose 0.10% to $838.35 a troy ounce and silver decreased 1.12% to $15.83.

Write to David Hodari at David.Hodari@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 07, 2017 06:44 ET (10:44 GMT)