WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold futures settled modestly higher on Monday despite a slightly stronger dollar.
The dollar firmed with investors assessing the impact of the assassination attempt on form U.S. President Donald Trump on financial markets.
The attempt on Trump's life has injected fresh uncertainty into an already tumultuous presidential campaign.
Gold futures for July ended up by $8.90 or about 0.37% at $2,422.90 an ounce.
Silver futures for July settled lower by $0.214 or about 0.7% at $30.672 an ounce, while Copper futures dropped to 4.5120 per pound, losing $0.0810 or about 1.76%.
Investors also reacted to weak economic data from China. China's GDP expanded 4.7% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
That was shy of expectations for an increase of 5.1% and down from 5.3% in the three months prior.
Industrial output growth for June beat forecasts but retail sales lagged estimates and fixed asset investment figures matched expectations.
In U.S. economic news, a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed regional manufacturing activity contracted at a slightly faster rate in the month of July.
The New York Fed said its general business conditions index edged down to a negative 6.6 in July from a negative 6.0 in June, with a negative reading indicating contraction. Economists had expected the index to come in unchanged.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who spoke at the Economic Club of Washington D.C. today, said that the central bank will not wait until inflation hits 2% to cut interest rates.
Powell referenced the idea that central bank policy works with 'long and variable lags' to explain why the Fed wouldn't wait for its target to be hit.
'The implication of that is that if you wait until inflation gets all the way down to 2%, you've probably waited too long, because the tightening that you're doing, or the level of tightness that you have, is still having effects which will probably drive inflation below 2%,' Powell said.
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