PRECIOUS-Gold faces third weekly decline as dollar, Treasury yields firm

May 6 (Reuters) – Gold prices edged lower on Friday and
looked set to fall for a third straight week, weighed down by a
robust dollar and rising yields, while investors await the U.S.
jobs report to assess its impact on monetary policy.

FUNDAMENTALS

* Spot gold fell 0.4% to $1,869.26 per ounce, as of
0137 GMT, while U.S. gold futures slipped 0.4% to
$1,869.10. Bullion has declined about 1.5% so far this week.

* Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields firmed, while the
dollar held near a 20-year high against a basket of currencies,
making non-yielding bullion expensive for other currency
holders. [USD/] [US/]

* New claims for U.S. unemployment benefits increased to a
more than two-month high last week, but remained at a level
consistent with tightening labor market conditions and further
wage gains that could keep inflation hot for a while.

* Investors will focus on U.S. Labor Department’s non-farm
payrolls numbers for April due later in the day.

* The Fed on Wednesday raised its benchmark rate by half a
percentage point, the most in 22 years, but Chairman Jerome
Powell explicitly ruled out a 75 bps raise in a coming meeting.

* The Bank of England sent a stark warning that Britain
risks a double-whammy of a recession and inflation above 10% as
it raised interest rates on Thursday to their highest since
2009, hiking by quarter of a percentage point to 1%.

* SPDR Gold Trust , the world’s largest gold-backed
exchange-traded fund, said its holdings fell 0.4% on Thursday.
[GOL/ETF]

* In other metals, spot silver slipped 1.1% to $22.25
per ounce, platinum declined 2.9% to $952.67 and
palladium fell 0.6% to $2,174.64.

DATA/EVENTS (GMT)
0600 UK

Halifax House Prices MM April
0600 Germany Industrial Output MM

March
0645 France Reserve Assets Total

April
1230 US

Non-Farm Payrolls

April
1230 US

Unemployment Rate

April
1230 US

Average Earnings YY

April

(Reporting by Swati Verma in Bengaluru;
Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
((Swati.Verma@thomsonreuters.com; within U.S. +1 646 223 8780
, outside U.S. +9180 6182 2831/3590; Reuters Messaging:
swati.verma.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: GLOBAL PRECIOUS/

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