Gold Prices Drop as Dollar Extends Winning Streak to Ten Days

Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Esther George also said that while she supports raising interest rates, the USA central bank must do so only gradually. It climbed to 110.75 yen – its highest level since the end of May – from 110.17 yen in late trading Thursday.

On Thursday, Yellen all but confirmed a first rate rise in 12 months by saying such a move would be appropriate “relatively soon” at its December 13 and 14 policy meeting, a year after the first and only rate hike since the financial crisis.

The Nifty IT index was in positive territory after three straight sessions of falls with HCL Technologies up 1.8 percent.

Looking ahead, a foreign securities house official said that “the dollar is expected to chase higher ground if US interest rates and stock prices continue rising”. That’s seen a rally in stocks, a sell-off of USA bond yields and a concurrent rise in the dollar.

“It’s the same theme, which is continued backing up of United States yields as the market reprices the prospects of Federal Reserve rate hikes”, said Sue Trinh, head of Asia FX strategy at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong.

As measured by the gross domestic product, the economy grew at a 2.9 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the government has estimated, more than twice the rate in the April-June quarter.

Palladium fell 0.73 percent to $721.20 an ounce, but was set to post a third weekly rise.

According to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$6.13 billion (US$192 million) worth of shares on the main board on Friday, while the weighted index closed up 0.15 percent. Johnson & Johnson slipped 71 cents to $115.06 while Botox maker Allergan retreated $4.35, or 2.2 percent, to $195.63. It’s near one-year highs against the euro and six-month highs against the yen. The dollar rose to 110.63 yen from 109.89 yen.

A MARVEL: Chipmaker Marvell Technology jumped 8.9% to $14.55 after it disclosed much stronger sales than analysts expected and gave a surprising forecast for the current quarter. The euro rose to $1.0683 from $1.0681.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude slid 30 cents at $45.12 a barrel in NY, while Brent crude, which is used to price worldwide oils, fell 25 cents to $46.24 a barrel in London.

The dollar has been on a tear, along with a surge in U.S. Treasury yields, since Republican Donald Trump’s victory on November 8 over Democrat rival Hillary Clinton.

France’s CAC 40 edged up 0.1 percent to 4,533.33 and Germany’s DAX added 0.2 percent to 10,705.58. The producer price index increased 1.2 percent from 12 months earlier, which would be the fastest pace in nearly two years, based on a Bloomberg survey of economists before the report Wednesday.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQc1 were down 0.75 points, or 0.02 percent, on volume of 25,270 contracts.