Metals: Gold Prices Rise on U.S. Inflation Data
Gold prices rose Friday, after weaker-than-expected U.S. inflation data eroded the case for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in coming months.
Gold for August delivery was recently up 1% at $1,229.80 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The consumer-price index was unchanged in June from the prior month, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected overall prices to advance 0.1% on the month.
Investors have been using U.S. data to gauge whether the economy is strong enough to bear a third interest-rate increase this year. Expectations that rates will stay low tend to boost gold, which struggles to compete with yield-bearing investments when borrowing costs rise.
"If the Fed is data dependent, they have yet to see the data for another rate increase," said Ira Epstein, a strategist at the Linn Group. "This is good for gold."
In base metals, copper for September delivery rose 0.7% to $2.6805 a pound.
Write to Ira Iosebashvili at ira.iosebashvili@wsj.com
Gold prices rose Friday, after weaker-than-expected U.S. inflation data eroded the case for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in coming months.
Gold for August delivery closed up 0.8%, at $1,227.50 a troy ounce, on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The consumer-price index was unchanged in June from the prior month, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected overall prices to advance 0.1% on the month.
Investors have been using U.S. data to gauge whether the economy is strong enough to bear a third interest-rate increase this year. Expectations that rates will stay low tend to boost gold, which struggles to compete with yield-bearing investments when borrowing costs rise.
"If the Fed is data dependent, they have yet to see the data for another rate increase," said Ira Epstein, a strategist at the Linn Group. "This is good for gold."
In base metals, copper for September delivery rose 1.1%, to $2.6910 a pound.
Write to Ira Iosebashvili at ira.iosebashvili@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 14, 2017 17:30 ET (21:30 GMT)