Commodities: Gold firms up as investors weigh up latest tax plan

Thursday saw Republicans outline a new tax plan to cut taxes for corporations and some middle class families.

Unfortunately, the US dollar did not react so well with the dollar index trading 0.10% lower to 94.717.

The weaker dollar helped bolster gold with the spot contract hitting a day high of $1,284/oz., before trading slightly lower to $1,277/oz, up 0.2% on the day. Futures saw the December contract up 0.05% to $1,278/oz..

Market participants were also weighing up the outcome of the new Federal Reserve chair, due to be announced at 1700 BST, with the likely nominee to be Jerome Powell.

"He (Powell) is probably slightly more dovish than Yellen," said James Butterfill, head of investment strategy at ETF Securities.

"That means perhaps also the prospect of fewer rate hikes than the Fed is currently pricing for next year – possibly only one or two. That's why gold is being supported."

Commerzbank offered a more technical outlook, stating, "Gold continues to weigh on the downside and still implies a test of the current October low and the 200-day moving average at $1,260.55/$1,260.89."

"Between here and the $1,250 2017 uptrend we should see the market attempt to stabilize."

In other precious metals, silver was down 0.08% to $17.12/oz., platinum traded 0.77% lower to $926/oz., whike palladium was 0.95% weaker to $996/oz.

In the crypto currency market, Bitcoin managed to rally to a day high of $7,323, up 5.58% on the day.

The latest rally was driven by news earlier this week that the world's largest derivatives exchange operator CME Group is to launch bitcoin futures.

In base metals, copper managed to gain 0.05% to $6,929/tonne. On the corporate front, Kaz Minerals's Bozymchak copper mine has suspended operations for 3 months on orders from the Kazakhstan government.

On the technical front, Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao said that copper could retest resistance at $7,013 a tonne because its rally from the 27 October low of $6,782.50 looks incomplete.

In the energy market, oil prices steadied near 2 year highs with January West Texas Intermediate (WTI) trading 0.24% higher to $54.67/barrel and benchmark brent crude up 0.12% at $60.58/barrel. The market outlook remained upbeat as OPEC led supply cuts tightened the market and drained inventories. Oil was also supported by falling US commercial crude inventories despite rising output.

"Compliance as a whole for OPEC ended up being rather strong," said Mark Watkins, regional investment manager at U.S. Bank. "Now that we've flipped the calendar to November we have the OPEC meeting at the end of the month. There's expectation that there will be positive comments about extending the cuts past March."

Agriculturals saw soybean futures for March 2018 0.76% firmer to$10.09/bushel while corn December futures were up 0.66% to $3.51/bushel.