MW: Gold little changed ahead of House vote on plan
By Moming Zhou, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Gold futures swung between gains and losses Friday as investors awaited the U.S. House of Representatives to vote on a revised version of the $700 billion bailout plan.
Gold for December delivery rose $2.3, or 0.3%, to $846.5 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell to as low as $833.70 in overnight electronic trading.
"[Gold] trading will remain extremely volatile in the days ahead as the markets digest the implications of the bailout," wrote Edward Meir, an analyst at futures brokerage MF Global.
The House is scheduled to vote Friday on the bailout plan, which was revised and passed by the Senate on Thursday.
In their first reaction Thursday to the passage of the plan in the Senate, investors pushed up the U.S. dollar. Gold slumped nearly 5% Thursday to close at its lowest level in two weeks. A rising dollar tends to pressure dollar-denominated gold prices.
The dollar changed course on Friday, with the greenback trading lower against the euro and the British pound. The dollar index , which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of major currencies, slid 0.2%. See Currencies.
Traders will again "keep a close eye on the dollar," said James Moore, an analyst at TheBullionDesk.com. A weakening dollar could boost gold prices.
Putting more pressures on the dollar, the Labor Department reported the U.S. economy lost 159,000 jobs last month, the ninth straight month of declines. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch forecast a 110,000 decline. The unemployment rate remained at 6.1%.
In other metals, platinum for October delivery lost 2% to $960.50 an ounce, while December palladium dropped 2.6% to $198 an ounce. December silver rose 3.4% to $11.50 an ounce, and December copper added 0.9% to $2.65 a pound.
In spot trading, the London gold-fixing price, used as a benchmark for gold for immediate delivery, stood at $842.50 an ounce Friday morning, down $9.50 from Thursday afternoon.