The gold price made modest gains in early morning London trading, ahead of today’s blockbuster US jobs report.
Spot gold was last $3.50 higher at $1,187.00/1,187.80 per ounce, having traded within an $8 intraday range so far. Silver was up 11 cents at $16.38/16.43 per ounce, platinum up $9 to $1,135/1,140 and palladium up $11 at $787/792.
The gains come despite the dollar looking stronger this morning at 1.1200 against the euro after US weekly jobless claims of 265,000 came in better than the forecasted 277,000 on Thursday.
Still, many participants will continue to hold fire ahead of Friday’s blockbuster US jobs report, which is forecast at 231,000 in April after an unusually weak reading of 126,000 in March.
The data may provide clues on when the US Federal Reserve will begin to normalise monetary policy, particularly as the Fed recently shifted its stance almost exclusively to data dependency, citing in particular jobs and inflation data.
The ADP figure on Wednesday, which has been falling since November, dropped below the key 200,000 level, coming in at 169,000 in April.
“With the ADP seen as a precursor to the main NFP number, we would expect this second signal of faltering growth to continue to suppress the dollar, thereby supporting metal prices on rising speculation for further weakness in the greenback if Friday’s job report confirms the recent downturn in this sector,” FastMarkets analyst Tom Moore said.
In earlier data, the Chinese trade balance at 34.1 billion was slightly weaker than expectations of 34.5 billion.
In particular, the data highlighted a strong slowdown in imports. The data adds to the logic that Beijing could introduce further stimulus measures to counteract a perceived slowdown in the Chinese economy.
The post Gold makes modest gains ahead of blockbuster US jobs report appeared first on The Bullion Desk.
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