Gold futures ended higher Friday, finding support from weaker-than-expected monthly U.S. jobs data to score a third weekly climb, even as easing tensions in Middle East worked to dull haven demand for the precious metal.
Gold had climbed past the “psychological $1,550 level as immediate reaction to the underwhelming December US nonfarm payrolls,” Han Tan, market analyst at FXTM, told MarketWatch. However, “bullion bulls are struggling to find cause for a sustained liftoff back to $1600 after the US and Iran appeared to walk away from the brink of an all-out conflict earlier this week.”
February gold
GCG20, +0.31%
on Comex tacked on $5.80, or 0.4%, to settle at $1,560.10 an ounce. Prices had climbed to as high as $1,613.30 on an intraday basis Wednesday, the highest since 2013.
For the week, the most-active gold futures contract gained about 0.5%, which marked their third weekly rise in a row, but perhaps more telling is gold’s nearly 4.4% peak-to-trough move over the week.
The backsliding in the precious commodity and jump in stocks over the five-session stretch follows a lessening of Middle East tensions that has restored risk appetite and produced a major drag on precious metals.
On Wednesday President Donald Trump delivered remarks that underscored a move toward peace after a late-Tuesday Iranian airstrike on U.S. air bases in Iraq in an apparent retaliation for the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani a week ago. Separately, A Chinese envoy is set to go to Washington on Monday through Wednesday to firm up a phase-one trade agreement.
“The abruptness of the heightened US-Iran conflict over the past week…shows that investors cannot fully rule out heightened geopolitical risks, and such a sense of caution should keep Bullion relatively elevated above its 50- and 100-day moving averages, which currently reside in the high $1,400s,” said Tan.
Meanwhile, equity markets, which often move in the opposite direction of gold, were mixed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA, -0.25%
trading lower after tapping a record above 29,000 and the S&P 500 index
SPX, -0.08%
and the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP, -0.07%
trading modestly higher as gold futures settled.
Gold prices saw volatile trading after the release of the December employment report, before gradually making a climb toward the session high. The data showed showed the U.S. economy created a smaller-than-expected 145,000 jobs in the final month of 2019, while the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.5%. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast, on average, a rise of 165,000, with Wall Street expecting a drop-off after a surprisingly robust 256,000 gain in November.
Among other metals, March silver
SIH20, +0.86%
added 16.9 cents, or 0.9%, to settle at $18.105 an ounce, for a weekly slide of roughly 0.3%.
March copper
HGH20, +0.43%
settled 0.4% higher at $2.8135 a pound, ending 1% higher for the week. April platinum
PLJ20, +1.30%
rose 1.4% to $986 an ounce, but lost 0.4% for the week.
Meanwhile, palladium finished at a fresh record. March palladium
PAH20, +0.55%
rose $12.50, or 0.6%, to $2,072.90 an ounce, with a weekly gain of 6%.
“South Africa is seeing fresh power outages this week and that could contribute to fresh palladium supply-side concerns,” analysts at Zaner Metals wrote in a daily note.
Source : MTV
