Gold Recovers From Early Weakness To Close Roughly Flat

(RTTNews) - After falling sharply early in the session, the price of gold regained ground over the course of the trading day on Friday before closing roughly flat.

Gold for April delivery edged down $1.60 or 0.1 percent to $1,850.20 an ounce after falling as low as $1,827.70 an ounce. With the slight decrease on the day, the price of gold slumped by 1.3 percent for the week.

The price of gold initially came under pressure amid strength in the value of the U.S. dollar, with the U.S. dollar index reaching its highest intraday level in well over a month.

However, the U.S. dollar index has pulled back well off its highs as the day has progressed and is currently up by just 0.1 percent.

The pullback by the dollar and subsequent recovery by gold came as treasury yields turned lower despite ongoing concerns about the outlook for interest rates.

On the U.S. economic front, the Labor Department released a report showing a modest decrease in U.S. import prices in the month of January.

The Labor Department said import prices dipped by 0.2 percent in January after edging down by a revised 0.1 percent in December.

Economists had expected import prices to slip by 0.2 percent compared to the 0.4 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.

Meanwhile, the report said export prices climbed by 0.8 percent in January after plunging by a revised 3.2 percent in December.

The increase surprised economists, who had expected export prices to edge down by 0.2 percent compared to the 2.6 percent slump originally reported for the previous month.