2021.05.0518:59:00UTC+00Gold Futures Settle Modestly Higher

Gold futures settled higher on Wednesday as the dollar turned easy after U.S. Secretary Janet Yellen clarified that she was neither predicting nor recommending a rate hike.

Yellen's clarification comes a day after she said at a summit on Tuesday that the Fed may have to raise interest rates to keep the economy from overheating.

The dollar index, which dropped to 91.17, recovered subsequently, but was up just marginally at 91.32.

Gold futures for June ended up by $8.30 or about 0.5% at $1,784.30 an ounce.

Silver futures for July ended lower by $0.036 or 0.1% at $26.522 an ounce, while Copper futures for July settled at $4.5240 per pound, up $0.0025 or nearly 0.1% from previous close.

A report from the Institute for Supply Management showed an unexpected slowdown in the pace of growth in U.S. service sector activity in the month of April. The ISM said its services PMI edged down to 62.7 in April after jumping to an all-time high of 63.7 in March. A reading above 50 still indicates growth in the service sector, but economists had expected the index to inch up to 64.3.

The unexpected drop by the services index comes after the ISM released a separate report earlier this week showing an unexpected slowdown in the pace of growth in U.S. manufacturing activity.

A report from payroll processor ADP showed private sector job growth accelerated in the month of April but still came in below economist estimates.

ADP said private sector employment spiked by 742,000 jobs in April after surging by an upwardly revised 565,000 jobs in March. Economists had expected private sector employment to soar by 800,000 jobs compared to the jump of 517,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.