Gold erases overnight price losses on bullish data

(Kitco News) - Gold prices are near steady in early U.S. trading Thursday and have taken back moderate overnight losses after some friendly U.S. and Euro zone economic data. August gold futures were last up $0.90 at $1,804.30 and September Comex silver was last down $0.10 at $25.155 an ounce.

The just-released U.S. jobless claims report showed a decline of 51,000 in claims, to 419,000, which was higher than the 350,000 in new claims expected.

Traders Thursday are also focused on the regular monetary policy meeting of the European Central Bank. The ECB left its monetary policy unchanged and said inflation is still running well below the bank's target rate. The ECB said it will keep monetary policy easy and maybe easier until the target inflation rate of 2.0% is reached. The ECB said it will also step up its bond buying program. ECB President Lagarde said that inflationary pressures have recently subsided.