Gold prices moved up slightly in early U.S. trading on Monday morning. December gold moved to $787.80, up 80 cents on the session. The precious metal has been little-changed throughout the early part of the day. The precious metal dropped $47.70 last week, posting declines four times in five sessions. The decline came as the U.S. dollar started to rebound against the euro, Canadian dollar and other major currencies after weeks of drops. The weekly plunge easily erased the gains from last week when gold added $26.20 last week and closed at record highs twice. Gold reached as high as $848.00 last week, a fresh 27-year high. The record high for gold is $875, reached on Jan. 21, 1980. Gold has been on the rise since mid-August as a struggling U.S. economy has weakened the U.S. dollar. On the economic front, traders awaited the release of the NAHB Housing Market index, which is expected in the afternoon. Housing starts and building permits data is scheduled for Tuesday, as well as the release of the minutes from the Oct. 31 FOMC meeting. Friday morning, the Federal Reserve released its report on industrial production and capacity utilization in the month of October, showing that industrial production unexpectedly fell while capacity utilization fell more than expected. In other commodity news, crude oil bounced back on Friday and finished above the $95 a barrel mark. Light sweet crude for December settlement closed at $95.10, up $1.67 on the day. Prices moved up at the open and reached as high as $95.73 during the session. Crude gained $2.32 in the week. This was the final day for the December contract, which saw oil set a record high of $98.64. January takes over as the front-month contract on Monday. Oil recouped its losses from Thursday, when it fell after the weekly inventory report revealed an unexpected rise in stockpiles. The Department of Energy's weekly report showed that crude oil inventories in the week ended November 9 increased by 2.8 million barrels after falling in the three previous weeks. The increase came as a surprise to economists who had expected crude oil inventories to fall by about 700,000 barrels. Light sweet crude for December delivery finished down 66 cents on the day. Oil reached as low as $92.00 in mid-day trading, but pared most of its losses. In soft commodity news, wheat prices moved lower on Friday in U.S. trading, erasing its gains from the prior session. December wheat fell 17 cents to trade at $7.485 a bushel. Overall, the grain has been range-bound for about a week.
November 19, 2007 8:47 AM