Gold futures held their ground above $1,150 an ounce on Friday, finding some support as economic data cooled expectations for a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase as early as June, but prices lost 1% for the week, pressured by gains in the U.S. dollar.
Gold wavered between small losses and gains. April gold GCJ5, +0.56% climbed 50 cents to settle at $1,152.40 an ounce on Comex. For the week, it logged a loss of about 1%.
May silver SIK5, +0.80% fell 2.2 cents, or 0.1%, to $15.494 an ounce — nearly 2% lower for the week.
RETAIL sales decreased 5 per cent in January 2015 year on year, the Department of Statistics announced on Friday. This was due largely to a 42.1 per cent dip in retail sales of food and beverages (F&B) compared to last year, when F&B sales were up because the Chinese New Year fell in January.
Excluding motor vehicles, retail sales fell 8.7 per cent compared to January 2014.
Retail sales of petrol service stations also declined 27.5 per cent year on year, partly due to lower petrol prices. Removing price effect, sales of petrol service stations decreased by a smaller 11.3 per cent.
In contrast, sales of motor vehicles and telecommunications apparatus and computers remained buoyant, registering increases in sales of 33.2 per cent and 25.9 per cent respectively in January 2015 over the same month in the previous year.
Singapore share prices closed lower on Friday with the Straits Times Index down 10.83 points, or 0.32 per cent, to 3,362.77 points.
The market had digested data that US retail sales were weaker than expected, easing fears of a rate hike that might come earlier than expected, after strong US jobs data a week ago. Around the region, stocks in Japan, China, Hong Kong and South Korea rose, while stocks in Australia, India, Malaysia and Indonesia fell.
Stocks that dragged down the local market included index heavyweight Jardine Matheson Holdings, which fell 1.9 per cent to US$62.12.
