Gold price near steady amid quieter marketplace Monday

(Kitco News) - Gold prices are trading near unchanged and silver prices slightly higher in early U.S. trading Monday. It’s a quieter start to the trading week, which is the unofficial last week of summer for Americans, ahead of the three-day Labor Day holiday weekend. October gold futures were last down $0.20 at $1,817.00. September Comex silver was last up $0.128 at $24.19 an ounce.

Global stock markets were mostly firmer overnight. The U.S. stock indexes are pointed to firmer openings when the New York day session begins, with the Dow and Nasdaq futures poking to record highs overnight. U.S. trader and investor attention to start the trading week is on Hurricane Ida that pounded the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts Sunday and overnight. The final days of the U.S. evacuations in Kabul, Afghanistan occur early this week, after last week’s terror attack that killed scores. Later this week comes the all-important U.S. jobs report on Friday morning.

Traders have mostly digested last week’s Jackson Hole, Wyoming annual Federal Reserve symposium. While several Federal Reserve officials gave hawkish interviews last week, Fed Chairman Jay Powell said on Friday that while the Fed could begin to reduce its monthly bond purchases this year, it will be in no hurry to raise interest rates. Powell’s remarks were not deemed as being overly hawkish on U.S. monetary policy.