Gold higher on monetary easing speculation

Investing.com - Gold prices advanced Thursday as U.S. unemployment numbers spurred speculation that the Fed may increase economic stimulus despite stating the opposite on Wednesday.

On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold futures for June delivery soared 1.08% to USD1,660.25 a troy ounce.

Gold traded at a low of USD1,642.45 a troy ounce and hit a high of USD1,661.55 a troy ounce during the session.

The precious metal will likely find support at USD1,625.55 a troy ounce, the low of April 25, and resistance at USD1,650.05, the high on April 24.

Increasing hopes of imminent Fed easing, official data indicated U.S. Initial Jobless Claims fell less-than-expected to a seasonally adjusted 388K last week from 389K in the preceding week whose figure was revised up from 386K.

Analysts had expected Initial Jobless Claims to fall to 375K last week.
This news weighed on the worldwide risk sentiment despite pending U.S. home purchases surging 4.1% in March to 101.4, the highest level since April, 2010.

In the euro zone, the European Commission reported that an index of executive and consumer sentiment dropped to 92.8 from a revised 94.5 in March.

Economists were expecting a slide to 94.2 adding to the negative euro region sentiment.

However, Ben Bernanake signaled yesterday that further stimulus from the central bank is unlikely unless the economy surprisingly starts to weaken.
 
The Fed Chief repeated his goal of keeping borrowing costs low until late 2014, at the earliest.

Elsewhere on the Comex, silver for July delivery traded higher by 2.61% to USD31.22 a troy ounce, while copper for July delivery pushed higher by 1.90% to USD3.78 a pound.