2017.07.2714:00:00UTC+00Gold Rallies Ahead Of GDP

Gold futures rose Thursday, hitting 6-week highs ahead of tomorrow's closely-watched U.S. GPD report.

Growth is likely to have accelerated to 2.8% in the second quarter, much faster than the 1.4% rate achieved in the first three months of the year, but still a bit subdued by historic standards.

August gold climbed by $10.60, or 0.9%, to settle at $1,260/oz, the highest since mid-June.

Prices rallied when the Federal Reserve said it will start to sell its $4.25 trillion holdings of Treasurys and mortgage-related debt "relatively soon." Traders were looking for a more specific timeline.

Also, the Fed hinted it is becoming concerned about that tame inflation may not be transitory after all.

In today's economic news, durable goods orders spiked by 6.5 percent in June after edging down by a revised 0.1 percent in May.

Economists had expected durable goods orders to surge up by 3.0 percent compared to the 1.1 percent drop originally reported for the previous month.

Excluding a jump in orders for transportation equipment, durable goods orders edged up by 0.2 percent in June after climbing by 0.6 percent in May. Ex-transportation orders had been expected to rise by 0.4 percent.

Meanwhile, a separate report from the Labor Department showed that initial jobless claims rose by more than expected in the week ended July 22nd.

The report said initial jobless claims climbed to 244,000, an increase of 10,000 from the previous week's revised level of 234,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to rise to 241,000.