Gold rises following US NFP data

The precious metal was able to extend its gains during the American trading session, and the price of gold headed higher, touching a high of $1,842.55 immediately after the announcement of the US non-farm payroll data on the daily chart, after the release of the US jobs report for February, which painted a mixed picture for the labor market. US dollar, which was generally perceived as negative for the US dollar, and at the time of writing, gold is trading at $1,861.68 an ounce.

Although the data revealed that the US economy added 311,000 jobs in February, beating economists’ expectations of 205,000, other data included in the report – including the overall unemployment rate, which rose to 3.6% and average hourly earnings, which slowed to 0.2% – fails to make the same impression and the overall result is lower inflation expectations, traders are pricing in the Fed’s shallow rate hike curve, and selling USD.

As of Thursday, physical gold outflows at the world’s largest gold ETF rose this week after Powell’s testimony but the employment data release helped return volatility to global markets and is likely to guide price action from now until next week, and gold was still subdued. by 1% during the week at the beginning of the European session, today, Friday, but managed to recover a large part of the losses on the back of Jerome Powell’s hawkish testimony before the US Senate Banking Committee and as a result of Powell’s indication of a faster pace of raising interest rates, if the aggregate data required such a measure. Gold was sold off by around 2.5% as expectations rose for a possible 50 basis point rally later this month.

However, gold prices started to rally yesterday after data revealed that the number of Americans filing for new jobless benefits rose from levels recorded for more than five months.