Gold prices holding gains following rise in U.S. weekly jobless claims

(Kitco News) - The gold market is holding on to solid gains but is not seeing much reaction to data that shows more American workers applied for first-time unemployment benefits than expected.

Thursday the U.S. Labor Department said that weekly jobless claims increased by 2,000 to 373,000, up from the previous week’s revised estimate of 371,000 claims.

The latest labor market data worse than expected as consensus forecasts looking for claims to fall to 345,000.