2021.04.2212:01:00UTC+00Gold Futures Edging Lower

Gold futures are drifting lower Thursday morning, coming off an 8-week high recorded in the previous session, despite a weak dollar and lower bond yields.

Traders are closely tracking the updates on coronavirus infections across the world. India and Japan have been seeing spikes in new cases with the former reporting nearly 3,15,000 infections in a single day on Wednesday.

Gold futures for June are down 5.60 or 0.31% at $1,787.50 an ounce. Gold futures for June ended higher by $14.70 or about 0.8% at $1,793.10 an ounce, the highest settlement since February 24.

Silver futures for Mayare down $0.100 or 0.4% at $26.470 an ounce.

Meanwhile, copper futures for May are rising $0.0072 or 0.17% at $4.2862 per pound.

The European Central Bank today left interest rates unchanged and made no changes to its bond-buying efforts. The central bank said the Governing Council decided to "reconfirm its very accommodative monetary policy stance."

The central bank said it would continue to buy bonds under its 1.85 trillion euro pandemic emergency purchase program until at least the end of March 2022, while net purchases under its asset purchase program would continue at a monthly pace of 20 billion euros. The bank added that PEPP purchases, as decided at the ECB's previous meeting, will continue at a significantly faster pace over the current quarter.

On the U.S. economic front, data on initial jobless claims for the week ended April 17, is due out at 8:30 AM ET.