Mixed day for bullions

Bullion metal prices ended mixed on Thursday, 14 March 2013. While gold prices ended higher, silver prices fell. Gold prices ended higher as the dollar weakened. Better than expected jobless claims data though pushed investors to equities thereby reducing the appeal of bullions as alternate investment.

Gold for April delivery ended higher by $2.3 or 0.1% at $1,590.7 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday. It traded as low as $1,575.7 during intra day trading.

March silver ended lower by 15 cents (0.5%) at $28.81 an ounce on Thursday.

In overnight news, European stock markets rose on Thursday following well-received Spanish bond auctions held on Wednesday and Thursday. However, there was more downbeat economic data coming out of the European Union Thursday. The EU employment level was reported at the lowest number of workers in seven years during the fourth quarter of 2012. A European Central Bank official said Thursday the ECB's monetary policy will remain accommodative due to the overall weak EU economy, and with inflation being of little threat at present.

The U.S. dollar index, which weighs the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies fell by 0.4% on Thursday.

Among economic data expected at Wall Street on Thursday, today's economic data revealed that for the week ending March 9, initial jobless claims declined 10,000 to 332,000. This was encouraging as the report marked the third consecutive time where claims held below the 350,000-400,000 range observed for the bulk of last year. The consensus expected the initial claims level to increase to 350,000.

Reviewing today's remaining economic news, producer prices rose 0.7% in February. That is up from a 0.2% gain in January and was the strongest monthly increase since rising 1.0% in September 2012. The consensus expected the PPI to increase 0.6%. Excluding food and energy, core PPI prices rose 0.2% for a second consecutive month. That was exactly what the consensus expected. A large part of the increase in core prices was the result of a strong gain in pharmaceutical preparations.

The current account deficit for the fourth quarter totaled $110.4 billion, which was narrower than the $112.3 billion deficit that had been broadly anticipated.

At the MCX, gold prices for April delivery closed lower by Rs 100 (0.33%) at Rs 29,389 per ten grams. Prices rose to a high of Rs 29,505 per 10 grams and fell to a low of Rs 29,260 per 10 grams during the day's trading.

At the MCX, silver prices for May delivery closed lower by Rs 468 (0.85%) at Rs 54,289/Kg. Prices opened at Rs 54,702/kg and fell to a low of Rs 54,084/Kg during the day's trading.

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