Investing.com – Gold prices climbed on Thursday as the dollar slipped after climbing to this year’s high overnight.
Gold futures for June delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange was up $0.6, or 0.1%, to $1,292.2 a troy ounce by 12:52AM ET (04:52 GMT).
The U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of six major currencies last stood at 93.12, down 0.16%.
Boosted by the better-than-expected building permits released on Wednesday evening, the greenback reached 93.50 overnight - a fresh new high for this year. A key indicator of demand in the housing market, building permits came in 1.352 million, beating the estimated 1.347 million. A report by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday also showed industrial production in the U.S. rose 0.7%, more than anticipated in April.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that he was not sure if his summit with North Korea would go ahead after Pyongyang threatened to pull out of the meeting as the country’s leader Kim Jong-un was not happy that the U.S. making a “one-sided demand” for the regime to surrender its nuclear weapons.
Dollar-denominated assets such as gold are sensitive to moves in the dollar – a fall in the dollar makes gold less expensive for holders of foreign currency and thus increases demand for the precious metal.