Gold edged lower early on Thursday as the dollar and yields rose following a report showed U.S. wholesale prices unexpectedly surged in July.

Gold for December delivery was last seen down US$11.60 to US$3,396.70 per ounce.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday said its July Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 0.9% from June, well above a flat reading a month earlier and the 0.2% consensus estimate from analysts polled by FactSet. Core PPI, excluding volatile items, was up 0.6% from June, also above the consensus estimate for a 0.3% rise. It was the largest monthly increase for core PPI since a 0.9% rise in March, 2022, the bureau noted.

"Thirty percent of the July rise in prices for final demand services can be traced to margins for machinery and equipment wholesaling, which jumped 3.8 percent," the Bureau said.

The data may temper expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by 25 basis points at the Sept.17 end of the next meeting of its policy committee, pushing the dollar higher. The ICE dollar index was last seen up 0.11 points to 97.95 following the data.

Treasury yields also moved up after the report, with the U.S. two-year note last seen paying 3.701%, up 1.8 basis points, while the yield on the 10-year note was down 1.1 points to 4.235%, up from 4.208% prior to the PPI release.

Source: MT Newswires