Spot Gold eased from a one-week high of $3,364.81 on Monday, as market players likely took profits after Friday’s over 2% surge. The latter came as US job growth slowed sharply in July, indicating the labor market could be stalling.
Employers in all sectors of the US economy, excluding farming, added just 73,000 job positions in July, well below estimates of 110,000.
Also, June’s job gains were revised sharply lower to 14,000.
The latest figures prompted investors to increase bets on how many times the Federal Reserve will likely lower interest rates this year.
Markets are now pricing in 54 basis points of rate cuts by year-end. The first cut is again expected in September.
On the trade front, US imposed last week on a number of countries are likely to remain in place rather than be reduced as part of continuing negotiations, according to Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
“But with Trump on the tariff warpath once again, and the soft U.S. jobs report increasing the odds that we could see a September FOMC rate cut, any pullbacks in the precious metal could be of a shallow nature,” KCM Trade chief market analyst Tim Waterer was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Spot Gold was last down 0.04% on the day to trade at $3,361.65 per troy ounce.
Citi has revised up its Gold price forecast over next three months to $3,500 per troy ounce from $3,300.
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