Gold held onto its gains on Wednesday morning, trading around $1,140, while investors await key US jobs data later this week.
The spot gold price was last at $1,141.10/1,141.20 per ounce, up $1.30 on Tuesday’s close. Trade has ranged narrowly from $1,135.5 to $1,142.5 so far.
“Gold looks rangebound leading into Friday’s NFP report, looking to hold $1,125-1,150 as China goes on holiday from tomorrow,” MKS said in a note.
Chinese markets will be closed on September 3-5 to mark the 70th anniversary of allied victory over Japan in World War II.
Investors will therefore focus on the US and the key official non-farm employment change that will be released on Friday; a positive number is expected to raise the odds for a September rate increase by the Federal Open Market Committee.
“A strong print holds downside risks for gold and with Chinese markets closed for Victory Day holidays for the remainder of the week, the market could lack some immediate support,” UBS said.
“For now, interest to buy dips is evident, yet it is also understandable for investors to be somewhat hesitant to put on sizeable long positions two weeks ahead of the FOMC meeting. A weaker-than-expected payroll print on Friday is likely to ease that hesitation,” the bank added.
In equities, European stocks have lost early gains after Chinese bourses extended their losses today – after yesterday’s weakness, China’s CSI 300 initially continued lower this morning, dropping 4.7 percent at one stage before stabilising ahead of the holiday shut-downs, ending just 0.4 percent lower.
Meanwhile, outflows from gold ETFs accelerated – holdings in the funds tracked by FastMarkets have fallen to 1,531.15 tonnes.
In today’s data, the Spanish unemployment change came better than expected, while the EU PPI was in line with the forecast.
From the US, the ADP non-farm employment change, revised non-farm productivity, unit labour costs, factory orders, crude oil inventories and the Beige Book are due later this afternoon.
As for the other precious metals, silver was little changed at $14.55/14.60 per ounce while platinum at $1,008/1,013 was up $6 and palladium at $568/573 was $4 lower
According to Tuesday data, annualised sales of US vehicles of 17.8 million units for August were up from July’s 17.6 million units.
“Prices of platinum and palladium are hardly profiting from these data at all this morning, however,” Commerzbank noted.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)
The post Gold price steady, market awaits US employment data appeared first on The Bullion Desk.
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