The direction of prices asked on Thursday released data from the U.S., including the final GDP of the fourth quarter, the weekly report on the number of applications for unemployment insurance and financial reporting of companies.

Thus, the number of applications for unemployment insurance in the U.S. fell to a minimum from April 2008 value came out worse than forecast at 359 thousand against the expected 350 thousand, while the previous data have been revised upwards, for example, data for the previous week with 348 thousand . to 364 thousand U.S. GDP growth in the fourth quarter on third assessment has not been revised, remained at 3.0% per annum, as expected.

Swiss bank UBS has lowered the forecast average price of gold in 2012 to $ 1.680 an ounce from $ 2.050 on the basis of indices of the first quarter.

April futures price of gold on COMEX has fallen today to $ 1644.3 an ounce.