Gold prices decline, leading to a loss for the week

Published: Jan. 15, 2021 at 1:37 p.m. ET

By

Myra P. Saefong

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Gold futures declined on Friday as strength in the U.S. dollar weighed on prices for the precious metal, leading to gold's modest loss for the week. "Gold has a strong case to rise higher, but it won't shake off a surging dollar," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda. "Gold could soften towards $1,800 and if buyers don't emerge, it could get ugly fast," he said. February gold GCG21, -1.40% lost $21.50, or 1.2%, to settle at $1,829.90 an ounce. Prices based on the most-active contract lost 0.3% for the week, FactSet data show.

Exxon Mobil's stock falls after WSJ report of SEC investigation

Shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. undefined dropped 2.3% in premarket trading Friday, putting them on track for their first decline in 10 sessions, after The Wall Street Journal reported the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation into allegations that an employee of the oil giant overstated the value of a key Permian Basin asset. Citing people familiar with the matter, the WSJ report said several people involved in valuing the asset complained that they were being forced to use unrealistic assumptions about how quickly the company could drill wells in the Permian Basin to arrive at a higher value. At least one employee how complained was fired last year, the WSJ report said. Exxon Mobil's stock had soared 22.1% amid a 9-day win streak, to close Thursday at a 7-month high. It has run up 46.0% over the past three months through Thursday, while the SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF undefined has advanced 44.0% and the S&P 500 undefined has gained 9.0%.

Myra P. Saefong

Myra P. Saefong, assistant global markets editor, has covered the commodities sector for MarketWatch for 20 years. She has spent the bulk of her years at the company writing the daily Futures Movers and Metals Stocks columns and has been writing the weekly Commodities Corner column since 2005.