Gold price (XAU/USD) drifts lower during the Asian session on Thursday and moves away from a four-week top, around the $2,670 area touched the previous day. The US Dollar (USD) stands firm near a two-year peak touched last week in the wake of the Federal Reserve's (Fed) hawkish shift, which, in turn, is seen as a key factor undermining the non-yielding yellow metal. In fact, the Fed indicated that it would slow the pace of interest rate cuts in 2025 amid a still resilient US economy, signs that the US labor market remained robust and sticky inflation. That said, concerns about US...
The EUR/USD pair trades in negative territory for the third consecutive day around 1.0310 during the early European session on Thursday. The downbeat German November Factory Orders and the expectation of aggressive rate cuts by the European Central Bank (ECB) this year weigh on the Euro (EUR) against the Greenback. Later on Thursday, the Eurozone Retail Sales for November and the Fedspeak will be in focus. German Factory Orders sank lower unexpectedly in November, with the figure falling by 5.4% MoM in November, compared to a decline of 1.5% in the previous reading, the Federal Statistics...
WTI crude prices settled above $73 a barrel on Thursday, paring earlier losses as investors weighed a sharp rise in U.S. fuel inventories against concerns about tighter supplies. The latest EIA report showed a nearly 1 million-barrel drop in U.S. crude inventories last week, the seventh straight decline, but also a significant increase of 6.3 million barrels in gasoline and 6.1 million in distillates. Meanwhile, OPEC production fell in December after two months of growth, as UAE field maintenance offset gains, including an increase in Nigerian output. Russian oil production also fell...