Gold basically flat ahead of U.S. Jobs Report
New York (Feb 6) Gold prices ended the U.S. day session not far from unchanged in quieter trading Thursday, ahead of Friday’s all-important U.S. employment report from the Labor Department. Spot gold was last quoted down 23 cents tp $1,257. while spot silver was down 3 cents to at $19.94.
A weaker U.S. dollar index was a bullish daily input for the gold market Thursday. However, a rally in the U.S. stock market limited gains in safe-haven gold.
A recent spate of disappointing U.S. economic data has put even more importance on Friday morning’s monthly U.S. jobs report for January. A weaker-than-expected jobs report on Friday would call into question how much more the Fed would be able reduce its monthly bond-buying program, also called quantitative easing. Late last year the U.S. central bank announced its “tapering” program, whereby the Fed is slowly scaling back its monthly bond purchases. The early forecasts are for the non-farm payrolls figure of the Labor Department’s employment report to come in at up around 190,000 in January.
World stock markets have stabilized from their recent sell offs, partly due to the strains on some emerging market currencies easing this week. Don’t be surprised if the anxiety rises again in some secondary currencies once China comes back to work after its Lunar New Year holiday break.
The important data point for Thursday was the monthly monetary policy meeting of the European Central Bank, including a press conference by ECB president Mario Draghi. The ECB left its key interest rates unchanged at the meeting. Ideas were mixed on what, if any, action the ECB would take following several weeks of mostly upbeat economic data coming out of the European Union. However, this week there has been a couple of downbeat economic reports coming out of the EU. And there are still concerns about the very low rate of inflation in the EU that had some ECB watchers calling for additional monetary stimulus measures from the central bank.
(Forbes)
