By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Gold was down on Friday morning in Asia, with investors continuing to consolidate their gains from earlier in the week.
The yellow metal hit a weekly high during the previous session, boosted by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates low during its policy meeting on Wednesday.
Gold futures were down by 0.36% at $1,6733.55 by 12:16 AM ET (5:16 AM GMT). Stocks, which usually move inversely to gold, were also down on Friday.
“You had a lot of fresh infections, which seemed to spook investors a bit so that pretty much put everybody into a risk-off and basically they’re selling everything except for the dollar and natural gas,” Michael Matousek, head trader at U.S. Global Investors, told CNBC.
Meanwhile, 1.542 million Americans submitted unemployment claims during the week, slightly lower than the 1.55 million claims predicted in forecasts prepared by Investing.com.