Gold Futures Settle Notably Higher As Dollar Weakens After Jobs Data

 

Gold prices climbed higher on Friday as the dollar weakened a bit and bond yields dropped after data showing an increase in U.S. unemployment rate, and a drop in wage growth tempered expectations for a 50 basis point hike from the Federal Reserve this month.

The dollar index, which slid to 104.04 around mid morning, recovered to 105.50 subsequently, but was still down nearly 0.8% from the previous close.

Gold futures for April ended higher by $32.60 or about 1.8% at 1,867.20 an ounce.

Silver futures for May ended up $0.341 at $20.506 an ounce, while Copper futures for May settled at $4.0305 per pound, down $0.0085 from the previous close.

Data from the Labor Department showed that the unemployment rate rose to 3.6% in February from 3.4% in January. The unemployment rate was expected to be unchanged.

Wage growth came in at 0.2% month-over-month and 4.6% year-over-year, below expectations for 0.3% and 4.7%, respectively.

Nonetheless, non-farm payroll employment shot up by 311,000 jobs in February after spiking by a revised 504,000 jobs in January.

Economists had expected employment to increase by 205,000 jobs compared to the surge of 517,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.