Gold prices fell modestly Thursday, after a volatile few days of trading since the announcement of a new omicron variant of COVID late last week.
Most traders and investors believe that the omicron variant “won’t cause catastrophic damage to the global economy,” Chintan Karnani, director of research at Insignia Consultants, told MarketWatch.
“They are preferring stocks over safe havens like gold,” he said. “Technical traders are also not buying as short term technicals are bearish.”
For now, “traders are just hitting in the dark” until there is “clarity” on omicron from the World Health Organization, said Karnani. “Gold and safe havens are not in their short term portfolio. Some traders are just sitting on cash, as well, in the last month of the year.”
The most active February gold contract
GCG22,
-0.98%
GC00,
-0.98%
slipped 0.9%, or $16.30, to $1,768 an ounce on Comex, after posting a climb of 0.4% on Wednesday. Gold, based on the most-active contract, has seen about a 1.1% drop for the week so far, according to FactSet.
March silver
SIH22,
+0.18%
rose 5.1 cents, or 0.2% to $22.39 an ounce, a day after posting a decline of 2.1%.
“Omicron fears have somewhat subsided late this week and that’s putting some risk appetite back into the marketplace. A slumping crude-oil market this week is also a negative for the metals markets,” said Jim Wyckoff, senior analyst at Kitco.com, in a note to clients.
That said, gold has struggled to see much haven benefit from the variant, with the precious metal barely changed this week.
“With markets in mayhem and investors’ behaviour becoming extremely volatile, gold prices may increase if omicron cases continue to rise,” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade, in a market update.
Among U.S. economic data Thursday, weekly jobless claims rose 28,000 to 222,000, partly reversing a big plunge in the prior week that had pushed new jobless claims down to 52-year low.
Meanwhile, the ICE U.S. Dollar Index
DXY,
+0.03%,
was trading flat at 96.040, and the 10-year Treasury note yields
TMUBMUSD10Y,
1.457%
was at 1.445%, up from 1.433% Wednesday.
Changes in the dollar and Treasury yields can influence gold because the metal is priced in U.S. dollars and doesn’t bear any interest.
Among other metals traded on Comex, March copper
HGF22,
+1.41%
tacked on 1.5% to $4.312 a pound. January platinum
PLF22,
-0.24%
fell 0.2% to $933.40 an ounce, while March palladium
PAH22,
+1.03%
added 0.7% to $1,765 an ounce.
![#ESPN’s Mark Jackson apologizes after NBA reveals he left Nikola Jokić off his MVP ballot [Video]](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/Yoew1btKTiGuEfCPZrxBSA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD04MDA-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/aol_yahoo_sports_800/4c54516de5418b407446d03520e24e1a)
