• Silver price finds cushion near $30.20 as investors had already priced in hawkish interest rate guidance in FOMC minutes.
• US weekly jobless claims were lower at 215K from the estimates of 220K in the week ending May 17.
• The US Dollar and bond yields remain under pressure on firm Fed rate-cut prospects.

Silver price (XAU/USD) stabilizes near $30.20 after a vertical downfall in Thursday’s New York session. The sharp downside in the white metal was driven by hawkish Federal Open market Committee (FOMC) minutes of the May policy meeting, which indicated that officials also discussed over hiking interest rates again as progress in the disinflation process stalled in the first quarter of the year.

However, the impact of the hawkish FOMC communication is supposed to be temporary on bullions as views of policymakers were based on stubborn higher inflation data of the first quarter of this year. The consumer price inflation data for April was declined as expected and indicated that price pressures are on course to return to the desired rate of 2%.

10-year US Treasury yields drop to 4.42% as soft inflation data is an unfavorable scenario for interest rates remaining higher for a longer period. A decline in yields on interest-bearing assets diminishes the opportunity cost of holding an investment in non-yielding assets such as Silver.

The US Dollar Index (DXY) is down by 0.2%, trades near 104.70 as investors remain firm that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will start reducing interest rates from the September meeting.

The USD Index struggles to stabilize despite the United States (US) Department of Labor has posted lower Initial Jobless Claims than estimates for the week ending May 17. Number of individuals claiming jobless benefits for the first time were lower at 215K from the estimates of 220K