Gold Ends Modestly Higher As Dollar Weakens; Gains 0.9% For Week

(RTTNews) - Gold futures ended modestly higher on Friday after fluctuating for much of the session, after the dollar weakened against a basket of major currencies on low volumes due to Christmas holidays.

For the week, gold gained about 0.9 percent.

Gold for February delivery, the most actively traded contract, gained $1.70 or 0.1 percent to close at $1,214.00 an ounce Friday on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold for February delivery scaled an intraday high of $1,218.90 and a low of $1,208.50 an ounce.

Holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, moved down to 804.22 tons from 805.72 tons.

The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. unit against six major currencies, traded at 80.25 on Friday, down from its previous close of 80.52 in North American trade. The dollar scaled a high of 80.52 intraday and a low of 79.69.

The euro traded higher against the dollar at $1.3766 on Friday, as compared to its previous close of $1.3691 in North America. The euro scaled a high of $1.3891 intraday and a low of $1.3686.

In economic news, initial jobless claims for unemployment benefits in the U.S. declined sharply for the week ended December 21. Initial jobless claims tumbled to 338,000, a decrease of 42,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 380,000. Economists expected claims to drop to 340,000 from the 379,000 originally reported for the previous week.

In economic news elsewhere, profit earned by Chinese industrial firms rose 9.7 percent in November, compared to the 15.1 percent annual rise witnessed in the previous month, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.