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The gold price is on pace for a third straight week of gains.
The gold price remained steady in the second half of the week after breaking a four-session slide on Wednesday (February 15).
The yellow metal rose above $1,230 per ounce that day, pushed up by comments from US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. She said it would be “unwise” to wait too long to raise interest rates.
By Friday, the yellow metal was sitting at $1,238.45 as of 12:19 p.m. EST, up 1.23 percent for the week. According to MarketWatch, the gold price is on pace for a third week of consecutive gains fueled by “political uncertainty.”
The precious metal “remains bullish in the short term amid the rising political risks across the globe and could edge higher towards $1,250 if the revived [U.S. Federal Reserve] uncertainty bolsters the yellow metal’s attraction further,” Lukman Otunuga, a research analyst at FXTM, told the publication.
Silver, gold’s sister metal, reached a three-month high of $18.06 per ounce on Thursday as demand for the US dollar stepped back, the Economic Calendar states.
Though the white metal dropped on Friday, the news outlet says it is still on pace for a small weekly gain. As of 12:54 p.m. EST on Friday, the precious metal was an even $18.
On the base metals side, the copper price slipped on Thursday. That said, supply disruptions at key copper mines have kept the red metal near 20-month highs on the London Metal Exchange. Earlier this week, copper rose above $6,200 per tonne for the first time since May 2015.
Copper on the New York Mercantile Exchange was at $2.70 per pound as of 1:10 p.m. EST on Friday.
Finally, oil prices remained relatively stable over the week, though Reuters notes that oversupply concerns and the US dollar have pushed prices down somewhat. While OPEC is staying true to its promise to reduce output, there is some worry that higher US output will keep oil prices down.
“At current levels of compliance and for just a six-month period, it will not allow them to achieve a goal of reducing global inventories back to their five-year average, especially when you think about supply growing elsewhere diluting the impact of the cuts they are making,” Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity strategy at BNP Paribas, told MarketWatch.
As of 1:40 p.m. EST on Friday, oil prices were at $53.25 per barrel.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Jocelyn Aspa, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
This article is updated each week. Please scroll to the top for the most recent information.
Despite dropping to a three-week low on Thursday (February 9), gold had a relatively strong week, soaring to $1,242.20 an ounce on Wednesday.
Thursday’s fall was the result of a stronger US dollar and a rise in equities, MarketWatch says. Even so, the yellow metal was on the rise again by Friday, and by 1:06 p.m. was at $1,232.50 — a 0.16-percent increase over the five-day period
“A good portion of the bullishness in gold this last several weeks has been a result of the general belief that the Trump rally moved too high, too fast,” Adam Koos, president of Libertas Wealth Management Group, told the publication.
Silver, gold’s sister metal, climbed to a near 12-week high early in the week. Its increase came on the back of technical buying and moderate expectations that interest rates will rise, Economic Calendar notes.
The white metal also made strides on Friday, climbing from $17.58 an ounce to $17.84 as of 1:10 p.m. EST. Economic Calendar suggests that silver is on pace for a weekly gain of 0.7 percent, while year-to-date its price has increased 10 percent.
On the base metals side, the copper price was pushed up this week on the back of looming supply disruptions at the world’s two largest copper mines. Forbes notes that by Friday LME copper was at $6,083 per tonne, its highest level since June 2015.
Spot oil prices also had a strong week, and are moving toward their strongest finish in roughly five weeks.
OPEC members have “delivered more than 90 percent of the output cuts” they promised last month, CNBC says, and as of 2:00 p.m. EST Friday, US crude was at $53.93 per barrel. That’s a 2.49-percent increase from the start of the week.
Don’t forget to follow us @INN_Resource for real-time news updates.
Securities Disclosure: I, Jocelyn Aspa, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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