2021.10.1418:17:00UTC+00Gold Futures Settle Higher For 3rd Straight Day

Gold prices advanced on Thursday, extending gains to a third straight session, as the dollar dropped a bit and the yield on Treasury bonds eased.

The dollar index, which fell to 93.76 in the European session, recovered gradually to 94.01, cutting its loss to just about 0.08%.

Gold futures for December ended up by $3.20 or about 0.2% at $1,797.90 an ounce, the highest close since mid-September.

Silver futures for December closed higher by $0.307 at $23.477 an ounce, while Copper futures for December settled at $4.6315 per pound, gaining $0.1155.

The FOMC minutes from the Fed's September policy meeting signaled that the Federal Reserve will announce a plan to taper asset purchases in either mid-November or mid-December.

Chinese inflation data for September proved to be a mixed bag, with consumer price inflation softening last month while factory-gate inflation soared to the highest level in almost 26 years, boosted by soaring prices of raw materials.

Data released by the Labor Department Thursday morning showed initial jobless claims fell to 293,000 in the week ended October 9th, a decrease of 36,000 from the previous week's revised level of 329,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to edge down to 319,000 from the 326,000 originally reported for the previous week.

With the bigger than expected decrease, jobless claims dropped to their lowest level since hitting 256,000 in the week ended March 14, 2020.

Another report from the Labor Department showed U.S. producer prices increased by slightly less than expected in the month of September. The report said the producer price index for final demand rose by 0.5% in September after climbing by 0.7% in August. Economists had been expecting producer prices to increase by 0.6%.