Weaker gold

Gold futures prices dipped in Friday action, setting the contract on course for a nearly 3% weekly retreat as the metal languishes near a 1 ½-year low.

Gold found little traction even as the leading dollar index also churned in the red.The dollar, up modestly for the week but surging more than 3% in just the last three months, remains the key driver for the precious metals. A firmer buck, which makes buying gold more expensive to investors using another currency, remains near a roughly 14-month peak.

December gold GCZ8, +0.08%  fell $1.20, or less than 0.1%, to $1,183 an ounce. It settled Thursday at $1,184 an ounce, the lowest settlement for a most-active contract since early January of 2017, according to FactSet data.

Gold futures trade down nearly 10% for the year to date, failing to draw the support that might be expected amid geopolitical turmoil around trade war worries and Turkey’s financial crisis, as focus remains almost exclusively pinned on the stronger dollar. The precious metal has languished just below the psychologically important $1,200 level after dropping beneath this line for the first time in more than a year on Monday.

A popular metals exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust GLD, +0.40% was actually up 0.3% in premarket action but has spent time both higher and lower, while an ETF that tracks gold miners, the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETFGDX, +0.94% fell 0.6%.

The U.S. dollar index DXY, -0.30% which measures the buck against a half-dozen rivals, was down less than 0.1% at 96.52 and continues to trade near its highest level since June 27, 2017. The index is up 5% year to date, according to FactSet.

Metals and currencies markets will digest releases on consumer sentiment for August and leading economic indicators for July are due at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, and an advance report on second-quarter services is also slated to hit at that time. Economists polled by MarketWatch expect a reading of 98.5 for the sentiment index.

September silver SIU8, -0.46% took back a sliver of Wednesday’s steep drop on Thursday before returning to the red in Friday’s trading. The contract was last down 8 cents, or 0.5%, at $14.635 an ounce. Silver futures fell nearly 4% on Wednesday—the metal’s largest one-day slump since mid-June.

September copper HGU8, +0.21%  fell about 1 cent, or 0.3%, to $2.609 a pound. October platinum PLV8, -0.69% was down $7.60, or 1%, to $776.90, still trading near its lowest in a decade. September palladium PAU8, -0.79%  fell $6.40, or 0.7%, to $868.40 an ounce.

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Source: marketwatch.com