Gold Moves Modestly Lower After Early Advance

(RTTNews) - Following the surge seen in the previous session, the price of gold has shown a modest move back to the downside over the course of the trading day on Thursday.

Gold for April delivery saw further upside early in the session but has given back ground as the day progressed and is currently down $11.70 or 0.2 percent at $4,997.80 an ounce.

The modest decrease comes after gold for April delivery shot up $103.60 or 2.1 percent to $5,009.50 an ounce during Wednesday's session.

Gold benefitted from its appeal as a safe haven earlier in the session following reports that American military intervention in Iran may come sooner than expected.

Citing top national security officials, CBS News reported the U.S. military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as Saturday, but the timeline for any action is likely to extend beyond this weekend.

Axios reported that a potential U.S. military operation against Iran would likely be a "massive, weeks-long campaign" and that Israel is pushing for a scenario targeting regime change in the Islamic Republic.

Elsewhere, Russia said it destroyed 113 Ukrainian drones overnight as U.S.-brokered Geneva talks ended without a breakthrough.

However, strength in the value of the U.S. dollar limited the upside and contributed to the subsequent downturn, with the U.S. dollar index reaching its highest level in almost a month.

The increase in the value of the dollar comes after the Labor Department released a report showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits fell by much more than expected in the week ended February 14th.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims slid to 206,000, a decrease of 23,000 from the previous week's revised level of 229,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to slip to 225,000 from the 227,000 originally reported for the previous week.