Investing.com - Gold prices traded lower in morning European trade but remained on track to register a second consecutive weekly gain as investors waited for U.S. President Donald Trump to approve tariffs on goods on Chinese goods worth about $50 billion.
At 3:51AM ET (7:51GMT), gold futures for August delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $4.80, or 0.4%, to $1,303.50 a troy ounce.
Washington is scheduled on Friday to release an updated list of Chinese tariff targets that is expected to trigger an in-kind response from Beijing, according to reports.
This will be the second wave of products and are part of Trump's decision to go forward with "pretty significant" tariffs, an administration official said on Thursday.
The now $100 billion list will be subject to the same public comment and hearing process as the $50 billion list, so it could take 60 days or more to put into effect, three sources familiar with the Trump administration's thinking on tariff plans told Reuters.
Gold is generally sought out as a safe haven store of value in times of political and economic uncertainty and the precious metal has risen approximately 0.3% this week, despite a strong week for the dollar, which is up 1.5% against major rivals.
A stronger greenback makes the dollar-denominated metal more expensive for holders of foreign currencies.
With the U.S. dollar index little changed on Friday, investors will look forward to a slew of data including the University of Michigan’s preliminary reading of consumer sentiment for June, the NY Empire State manufacturing index for the same month as well as industrial production for May.
In other metals trading, silver futures lost 0.4% at $17.200 a troy ounce by 3:53AM ET (7:53GMT).
Palladium futures fell 0.3% to $1,003.30 an ounce, while sister metal platinum dropped 0.6% at $905.30.
In base metals, copper traded down 0.4% to $3.209 a pound.