Gold prices slipped in Indian markets on Thursday, snapping three-day winning streak as the countries affected by coronavirus have allocated funds to contain the virus. “Strong ADP employment change and robust ISM non-manufacturing PMI pushed gold prices lower today. However as IMF warned against lower growth in 2020 as compared to 2019, there will be support going ahead. Traders would monitor NFP for February which will come tomorrow. Having said this, we expect sentiments to be flattish to negative today,”Jiagr Trivedi, Fundamental Research Analyst – Commodities, Anand Rathi Shares and Stock Brokers said.
On MCX, gold April futures were trading Rs 226 or 0.52 per cent lower at Rs 43,343 per 10 grams, while silver May futures were ruling at Rs 46,404 per kg, down Rs 279 or 0.60 per cent. While, spot gold was up 0.1 per cent at $1,637.80 per ounce. US gold futures were down 0.2 per cent to $1,693.10.
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus infections on Wednesday in mainland China stood at 139, the country’s National Health Commission said on Thursday, taking the country’s total number of confirmed cases so far to 80,409, according to Reuters news report. However, in India the number of coronavirus cases have risen to 29, including 16 Italian tourists who had tested positive for the disease as well as an employee of a digital payments company who had travelled to Italy.
On Thursday, domestic equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty were trading higher in a volatile session. S&P BSE Sensex was trading 422 points or 1.10 per cent higher at 38,831 points, while the broader Nifty 50 index was ruling at 11,371, up 120 points or 1.07 per cent.