Gold Steady Ahead Of Draghi Press Conference

Washington (Sept 4)   Gold prices are little changed Wednesday morning, amid a somewhat muted reaction to the  European Central Bank's  unexpected rate cut announcements.

In a surprise move, the  European Central Bank  today cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low of 0.05%, from 0.15%.

The bank has announced a reduction in its deposit facility rate to -0.2%. The marginal lending rate has been cut to 0.3%, from 0.4% earlier. Markets are now looking ahead to the post meeting comments from the ECB President  Mario Draghi  .

Meanwhile, the Bank of  England  has left its interest rate unchanged at 0.5%, as expected.

Traders are now looking ahead to a slew of US economic data for further direction.

Gold futures for December are down  USD1.30  or 0.10% at  USD1,269.20  an ounce.

On Wednesday, gold futures ended up  USD5.30  or 0.4% at  USD1270.30  an ounce, on bargain hunting after suffering a severe setback a day earlier on some upbeat US economic data.

Silver for December is up  USD0.054  or 0.28% at  USD19.243  an ounce. Meanwhile, copper is up  USD0.029  or 0.94% at  USD3.157  per pound.

In just-released economic news, the US private sector added 204,000 jobs in August, according to payroll processing firm ADP. That's slightly lower than expected.

 The Commerce Department  will release its trade balance report for July at  8:30 am ET  .  The Labor Department's  jobless claims report for the week ended  August 30  , and the revised second quarter productivity and costs data are also due around the same time.

Later in the morning,  Markit  is scheduled to release revised estimate of its service sector purchasing managers' index for the US and the  Institute for Supply Management  will release the results of its service sector survey for August.

Source:  AllianceNews