Gold ticked higher in early Asia on Friday as investors looked ahead to data from China on GDP, industrial production and retail sales. On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold for June delivery was last quoted at $1,229.10 a troy ounce, up 0.09%. Silver futures for May delivery rose 0.18% to $16.180 a troy ounce, while copper futures held flat at $2.168 a pound. In Asia, China details first quarter GDP with a 6.7% gain seen year-on-year and a 1.5% rise quarter-on-quarter. As well, in China comes industrial production for March with a 5.9% gain seen year-on-year and retail sales with a jump of 10.4% expected year-on-year. Overnight, gold fell sharply on Thursday, extending a considerable sell-off from the previous session, as unexpected easing measures from the Singapore Central Bank boosted the dollar versus the yuan and upbeat U.S. economic data augmented hawkish arguments for a June interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve. Gold has also erased all of its gains from Monday's surge when it jumped by more than $20 dollars an ounce to hit three and a half week highs. Despite the recent downturn, the precious metal is still up by more than 15% since January 1 and is on pace for one of its strongest opening halves of a year in more than a decade. On Thursday, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) lowered the appreciation rate of the Singapore Dollar's nominal effective exchange rate to zero, marking the first time the central bank brought its policy band out of positive territory since 2008. In a statement released after the meeting, the MAS insisted that the policy shift only removes gradual appreciations of the effective exchange rate and was not done to "depreciate the Singapore dollar." Nevertheless, the dollar rose sharply against the Chinese yuan reaching an intraday high of 6.4876, its highest level in nearly a week. It came one day after China improved investor sentiment worldwide after reporting that exports surged by 11.5% in March on an annual basis, recovering from a decline of almost 25% in dollar terms a month earlier.
