Gold Ends A Tad Lower With Greece In Focus

(RTTNews) - Gold futures ended a tad lower on Friday, after surging over 2 percent yesterday, as the dollar strengthened against the euro on concerns over Greece's failure to reach an agreement with its international creditors to sort out its financial mess.

Gold futures gained about 1.9 percent for the week.

Gold was basking in the Fed's dovish stand when the central bank on Wednesday refrained from offering specific guidance on when they will hike interest rates, but hinted reluctance to begin tightening in September.

With time running out, Greece is saddled with an uphill task of repaying a bundled loan of Euro 1.5 billion to the International Monetary Fund on June 30. Investors are now focused on Monday's emergency summit meeting of eurozone leaders called by the European Council President Donald Tusk to discuss the Greek crisis, seen as a final call for Athens to set things right.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hoped the summit meeting would be a success, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel too was hopeful of a last minute deal, while urging Athens to agree to reforms as required by its international creditors.

The European Central Bank, meanwhile, has reportedly raised the cap on its Emergency Liquidity Assistance fund for banks in Greece by Euro 3.3 billion.

Gold for August delivery, the most actively traded contract, dipped $0.10 to settle at $1,201.90 an ounce, on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday.

Gold for August delivery scaled an intraday high of $1,204.00 and a low of $1,198.00 an ounce.

On Thursday, gold prices surged $25.20 or 2.1 percent to settle at $1,202.00 an ounce, after a dovish U.S. Federal Reserve statement following its monetary policy meet on Wednesday, signaling it would be patient in raising interest rates.

Holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, remained unchanged at 701.90 tons on Friday from its previous close.

The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. unit against six major currencies, traded at 94.08 on Friday, up from its previous close of 94.01 on Thursday in late North American trade. The dollar scaled a high of 94.50 intraday and a low of 93.90.

The euro trended lower against the dollar at $1.1356 on Friday, as compared to its previous close of $1.1361 in North American trade late Thursday. The euro scaled a high of $1.1394 intraday and a low of $1.1294.

On the economic front, euro area current account surplus increased in April largely reflecting an improvement in goods trade, the European Central Bank said Friday. The current account surplus rose to a seasonally adjusted EUR 22.3 billion from EUR 18 billion a month ago.

Germany's producer prices declined more than expected in May, data released by Destatis revealed Friday. Producer prices declined 1.3 percent in May from last year, but slower than the 1.5 percent drop seen in April and 1.7 percent fall in March.

U.K. public sector borrowing declined in May from the last year, the Office for National Statistics reported Friday. Public sector net borrowing excluding interventions was GBP 10.1 billion or 0.5 percent of GDP in May. This was a decrease of GBP 2.2 billion from May 2014. It was expected to drop to GBP 10.3 billion.

Sentiment among U.K. households concerning house prices increased for the twenty-seventh consecutive month in June, improving to an eight-month high, as households expects that any uncertainty caused by the general election has passed, a survey from Knight Frank and Markit Economics showed Friday.

The house price sentiment index, or HPSI, rose to 59.5 in June from 58.0 in the previous month. This marked the twenty-seventh successive month that the index remained above 50, a level separating rise and decline in prices.

Confirming the outlook for more economic expansion in the second half of the year, the Conference Board's index of leading U.S. economic indicators climbed by 0.7 percent in May, in line with the increase seen in April. Economists expected the index to rise by 0.4 percent.

The leading index for Japan revised downward to 106.4 in April from the preliminary estimate of 107.2, although it represented an increase from 105.2 in March, the Cabinet Office said Friday.