Gold gains ground as dollar dips while traders digest Fed's decisions

Gold prices rose on Thursday as the dollar fell against most major rivals, while investors digest the Fed’s policy decisions. 

Earlier government data showed unemployment claims stayed flat at 208 thousand last week, while analysts expected a rise to 212 thousand. 

The Federal Reserve announced its decision to maintain interest rates unchanged between 5.25% and 5.5% for the sixth straight meeting.

The Fed’s policy statement indicates it doesn’t expect to perform any rate cuts until there’s enough confidence that inflation is moving sustainably towards 2%.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in his press conference on Wednesday that the Fed expects policies to remain restrictive for sometime in order for inflation to hit the 2% target. 

He added that he doesn’t expect the next policy step to be a rate hike, however he doesn’t expect a rate cut until inflation is reliably heading towards 2%. 

Otherwise, the dollar index fell 0.3% as of 19:18 GMT to 105.4, with a session-high at 105.9, and a low at 105.3.

Gold spot prices rose 0.2% as of 19:19 GMT, or $4.10 to $2315.1 an ounce.