Gold gains on U.S. data

Gold gained on Friday as U.S. data showed signs of rising inflation, boosting the precious metals appeal as a hedging strategy versus inflation.

On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold futures for August delivery traded 0.74% higher on the day and stood at $1 388.05 at 14:13 GMT. The precious metal varied between daily high and low at $1 391.65 and $1 377.85 per troy ounce respectively.

U.S. data showed today that the Core PPI both on annual and monthly basis for May met expectations at 1.7% and 0.1% gain respectively. However, annual Producer Price Index surpassed projections of a 0.1% jump to reach 0.5%, well above April’s 0.6% increase reading. PPI on a monthly basis jumped to 0.5%, surpassing expectations of 0.1% and way above April’s 0.7% decrease. Unexpected rise of prices spurred concern about inflation, which immediately resulted in a jump of gold and oil prices as a hedging strategy against inflationary effects. Gold went above the $1 390 mark and WTI traded above $98 per barrel, minutes after the data was published.

Phil Streible, a senior commodity broker at R.J. O’Brien & Associates in Chicago, said in a telephone interview for Bloomberg: “Suddenly, people are talking about inflation. Today, the safe-haven appeal is back.”

Yesterday gold traders went bearish for the first time in a month as U.S. data on Thursday and news about India curbing gold imports to handle its record current account deficit weighed on gold as safe haven for wealth preservation. Fourteen out of eighteen analysts, surveyed by Bloomberg, expected gold prices to sink during next week, while four remained neutral. A possible earlier-than-expected Quantitative Easing scale back would deliver a massive shock to gold prices. Investors buy the yellow metal in order to hedge against risks of inflation, which could be spurred by Fed’s bond purchasing program.