Gold little changed ahead of US jobs report

The spot gold price made little progress during Asian trading hours on Friday December 2, ahead of the US non-farm employment report due later today.

The spot gold price was recently quoted at $1,173.25/1,173.55 per oz, up $0.30 on the previous close. Trade has ranged from $1,172.75 to $1,178 so far.

The November US jobs report will be released later today whereby 177,000 new jobs are expected to have been added in the country during the month.

On Wednesday, the ADP non-farm employment change – a precursor to Friday’s official numbers – showed 216,000 Americans joining the labour market in November, besting the forecast of 161,000.

The recent spate of positive data is expected to produce higher rates when the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets on December 13-14 – market participants see a 95% chance of a rate hike during the meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

On Thursday, US final manufacturing PMI in November bested economic consensus at 54.1 – 53.9 was called for. Additionally, ISM manufacturing prices and PMI for November both topped projections at 54.5 and 53.2, respectively.

October construction spending, however, came in at 0.5% month-on-month, a touch below the 0.6% prediction, while weekly unemployment claims were at 268,000 last week, which was above consensus of 252,000.

The spot gold price is under pressure after recent positive US economic data which may see a pick-up in the speed of rate increases in the USA, China’s Zhengjin Precious Metals said late on Thursday.

The broker suggests clients go short at around $1,180 per oz with a target of $1,165.

In other commodities, the Brent crude oil spot price hit as high as $54.50 per barrel on Thursday, the highest since July 2015 after Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members on Wednesday agreed to curtail production in 2017.

“Optimism prevails within the oil market that the combination of production cuts and uplifts in global demand will bring the oil market back into balance. It looks achievable on the face of it, provided the parties to the latest production cut deal stick to their pledges, which has historically been somewhat of a sticking point,” ANZ Research said on Friday morning.

The Brent crude oil spot price was recently at $53.54 per barrel, down 0.22% from its previous close.

In currencies, the US dollar index fell 0.05% to 100.84 recently on Friday.

In equities, the Shanghai Composite slipped 0.05% to 3,271.81 so far today.

In the other precious metals, the spot silver price decreased $0.075 to $16.41/16.43 per oz. Platinum at $907/912 per oz was up $2, while palladium rose $8 to $771/776 per oz.

On the Shanghai Futures Exchange, gold for June delivery was recently at 268.50 yuan ($39) per gram, and the June silver was at 4,147 yuan per kg.

(Editing by Kyle Docherty)

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