2021.10.2118:23:00UTC+00Gold Futures Settle Lower As Dollar Rebounds

Gold prices edged lower on Thursday, weighed down by a slightly stronger U.S. dollar and higher Treasury yields.

However, amid fading prospects of the Federal Reserve resorting to any tightening of its monetary policy early November, the bullion did not see a pronounced decline today. Weakness in equities markets amid worries about China Evergrande's debt woes too helped limit gold's downside.

The dollar index climbed past 93.70, advancing from 93.50.

Gold futures for December ended lower by $3.00 or about 0.2% at $1,781.90 an ounce. Gold futures had moved up by about 0.8% yesterday.

Silver futures for December settled lower by $0.275 or 1.1% at $24.170 an ounce, after having gained nearly 2.5% in the previous session.

Copper futures for December settled at $4.5585 per pound, down $0.1760 or 3.7% from the previous close.

Data released by the Labor Department showed initial jobless claims unexpectedly slipped to 290,000 in the week ended October 16th, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week's revised level of 296,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to inch up to 300,000 from the 293,000 originally reported for the previous week.

With the unexpected dip, jobless claims once again fell to their lowest level since hitting 256,000 in the week ended March 14, 2020.

The National Association of Realtors released a report showing existing home sales rebounded by much more than expected in the month of September.

NAR said existing home sales spiked by 7% to an annual rate of 6.29 million in September after slumping by 2% to a rate of 5.88 million in August. Economists had expected existing home sales to jump by 3.6% to a rate of 6.09 million.

Existing home sales reached their highest annual rate since January but were still down by 2.3% compared to the same month a year ago.