(Kitco News) - The gold market has given back around half of this week's big gains Friday as prices are sharply lower going into the Comex futures close. Overnight losses in gold were extended on some hawkish comments from Fed official James Bullard, who said Friday morning the FOMC could move to "taper" its monthly bond-buying program as soon as its next meeting in October. He also said this week's FOMC decision not to scale back monthly bond buying was a close one. The gold and silver markets are also seeing profit-taking from the shorter-term traders, following the big run-ups in prices seen on Wednesday and Thursday. Technically, the gold and silver market bulls quickly faded on Friday, which solidified the bears still have the near-term technical advantage. December Comex gold last traded down $35.30 an ounce at $1,334.00.
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By Jim Wyckoff, contributing to Kitco News; jwyckoff@kitco.com