Bullions end near unchanged mark

Lack of fresh, bullish fundamental news limited buying interest

Bullion prices ended almost steady on Monday, 09 September 2013 at Comex. Gold prices ended the U.S. day session near unchanged in quiet activity as a lack of fresh, bullish fundamental news limited buying interest. However, heightened geopolitical tensions limited the downside price pressure in gold.

Gold for December delivery added 20 cents to settle at $1,386.70 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Last week, prices fell by 0.7%.

December silver shed 17 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $23.72 an ounce.

There are still market jitters regarding a potential U.S. military strike against the Syrian regime. The G-20 meeting in Russia ended over the weekend. The main focus was President Obama's efforts to line up support for U.S. military action against the Syrian regime.

In economic news, China during the weekend reported strong exports during August, at up 7.2% on an annualized basis. Strong Chinese import levels for August were also reported, at up 7.0% year on year. Consumer inflation in China rose 2.6% in August, year on year, which was in line with expectations. China industrial production figures are due out Tuesday. There was also strong GDP data coming out of Japan on Monday. The upbeat Asian economic data is a bullish underlying factor for the precious metals markets.

At Wall Street, according to the Federal Reserve, consumer credit increased by $10.4 billion in July. This followed the prior month's increase of $11.9 billion, and was lower than the $13.0 billion that had been broadly expected by market.

Traders and investors are already looking ahead to next week's meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC). Last Friday's weaker than expected U.S. jobs report did not really shed any fresh light on whether the Fed might start to taper its monthly bond-buying program sooner or later. Still, it appears a slight majority of the market place believes the U.S. central bank at next week's meeting will announce it will begin to scale back its quantitative easing.

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