WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold futures settled roughly flat on Friday with investors assessing the likely move of the Federal Reserve next week in the wake of the latest batch of economic data.
Data released by the Commerce Department showed a bigger than expected slowdown in the annual rate of core consumer price growth in the month of December.
While the Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, traders will be looking for clues about the timing of highly anticipated rate cuts.
A weak dollar failed to trigger any significant buying in the yellow metal. The dollar index, which dropped to 103.15 in early New York session, recovered to 103.41, but still remained below the flat line.
Gold futures for February ended lower by $0.50 at $2,017.30 an ounce.
Silver futures for March ended down $0.055 at $22.872 an ounce, while Copper futures for March settled at $3.8520 per pound, down $0.0170 from the previous close.
The Labor Department report said the annual rate of growth by core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy prices, slowed to 2.9% in December from 3.2% in November. Economists had expected core price growth to decelerate to 3%.
The annual inflation reading, which is said to be preferred by the Federal Reserve, was included in the Commerce Department's monthly report on personal income and spending.
'The data we've had today in theory aids the case for cutting rates in March and much more this year but prices are steady with spending figures perhaps preventing people getting carried away,' says Craig Erlam, Senior Market Analyst at OANDA, UK & EMEA.
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