gold futures headed higher on thursday looking to recoup losses from a day earlier that pulled prices to their lowest finish in just over a week the precious metal found support from weakness in the us dollar following us data showing a weekly rise in the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits to a nearly twoyear high us jobless claims rose 28000 to 261000 for the week ended june 3 the labor department reported thursday the ice us dollar index declined by 06 to 10351 following the data raising the appeal of dollardenominated gold the rise in jobless claims help support the possibility that the federal reserve will not increase interest rates at their policy meeting next week expectation is mounting that the us central bank will hit pause on its interest rate hikes said rupert rowling  market analyst kinesis money in market commentary ahead of the jobless claims data however investors and traders are reluctant to fully commit their funds until this does indeed prove accurate the fact that gold continues to trade at such high levels that although they may be about 100 lower than golds early may peak are still at a range seen only a handful of times in the precious metals long trading history reflects the fragile state of market confidence he said he believes gold looks set to slide slowly but steadily lower over the coming weeks and months proving the barometer of investors true confidence in the global economic outlook a series of fed rate hikes that have taken the fedfunds rate from near zero to 5 to 525 since march 2022 a rate rise by the bank of canada on wednesday ending a lengthy pause underscored fears that us rates may still have room to rise in the face of stubborn inflation analysts said read why us stockmarket investors were rattled by the bank of canadas surprise rate hike in a research note dated wednesday strategists at citi research led by aakash doshi said equity volume compression the recent backup in treasury yields and bounce in the us dollar amid a resolution to an imminent us debt ceiling breach provide a potential cap on nearterm gold market cheer they reduced their zero to threemonth gold pricepoint target to 1915 an ounce from 2100 gold remains a viable macro portfolio tail hedge historically and during the current postpandemic era despite the hawkish federal reserve regime they said we believe bullish bullion sector tailwinds will reemerge before end2023 ipek ozkardeskaya senior analyst at swissquote bank meanwhile warned that gold is trading near the 100day moving average around the 1940 level and that losses could accelerate if thats violated the next reasonable target for gold bears is 1905 the major 382 fibonacci retracement on november to may rally and which should distinguish between the actual positive medium term trend and a bearish reversal she wrote in a note many technical analysts pay attention to whats known as the fibonacci ratio attributed to a 13th century italian mathematician known as leonardo fibonacci of pisa technical analysts see key retracement targets for a rally from a significant low to a significant peak at 382 50 and 618 while retracements of 236 and 764 are seen as secondary targets this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal