Futures for gold were seen climbing on the last day of the trading week before data for US job data including non-farm payrolls and unemployment rate figures. The data is expected to be released later in the day. The yellow metal is rising towards its sixth weekly gain.
Bullion for March delivery rose 0.37% trading at $1,261.80 an ounce as of the time of writing, while silver futures fell 0.19% lower to $19.89 an ounce at the same time.
Meanwhile in China, the HSBC services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) dropped to 50.7 in January, compared to the previous reading of 50.9 in December. China probably overtook India as the world’s largest consumer of gold in 2013.
On Thursday, holdings in the world’s largest exchange trade fund, SPDR; came in at 797.05 tones. The dollar index which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of six of its major peers fell by 0.01% to 80.897 points at the time of writing.
Gold – US Employment Data
The jobless claims in the US dropped by 20,000 to 331,000 in the week ending February, compared to the revised figures of 351,000 seen in the previous week, reports from the Labour Department confirmed.
The nonfarm payrolls data which is expected to be released later during the day is forecasted to show 180,000 new jobs added in the US in January according to analysts, after a 74,000 gain was seen in the previous month.
The US unemployment rate is forecasted to remain unchanged at 6.7% in January.
The US trade balance came in at a deficit of $38.7 billion for December, compared to the previous figures of $34.6 billion deficit in the previous month, data from the US Census Bureau confirmed.
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