Spot Gold Remains At ~$4250 After US Weekly Jobless Claims Hold Steady at 226000
Gold prices remains below $4,300 Thursday after U.S. initial jobless claims came in largely in line with expectations, signaling continued labor market resilience.
Gold prices pulled back from their session floor on Thursday morning as the latest U.S. labor market figures landed consistently with economist projections, offering little fresh impetus for a further sell-off in the precious metal.
The U.S. Labor Department reported that initial claims for state unemployment benefits reached a seasonally adjusted 226,000 during the week that ended June 13. The reading closely matched consensus expectations, which had called for 225,000 new filings. The prior week's tally was revised slightly higher, to 230,000, which is about 1,000 higher from the originally reported 229,000.
Spot gold touched an intraday trough of $4,240.07 before NYSE market open, then recovered slightly.
The four-week moving average for initial claims landed at 223,250, nearly matching the forecast of 223,000.
On the continuing claims side, the number of individuals already receiving unemployment benefits stood at 1.810 million for the week that ended on June 6th. That figure came in just above the 1.800 million estimate, while the preceding week's level was revised to only 1.786 million.
The job market data did little to alter the prevailing narrative around the Federal Reserve's policy path. With the central bank having signaled on Wednesday that a rate increase remains on the table this year, gold continues to wrestle with the dual headwinds of possible rate hikes and resilient fundamental data.