Gold price steady above $1,415 per ounce after fall
Spot gold held steady on Friday, consolidating after falling more than 1 percent in the previous session, as investors await a key U.S. job market report to assess the health of the world’s top economy.
U.S. nonfarm payrolls data, due at 1330 GMT, is expected to show a strong increase in new jobs. It will come at the heel of upbeat weekly jobless claims data on Thursday.
“If the payrolls data surprises on the downside, gold prices will continue to be supported,” said a Tokyo-based trader. “If it is better than expected, it may put some pressure on prices.”
Spot gold edged up 0.2 percent at $1,417.89 an ounce by 0316 GMT, poised for a minor gain of 0.6 percent after a choppy week.
U.S. gold futures also inched up 0.2 percent at $1,418.60 an ounce.
Price of bullion fell by as much as 2 percent during a cross-commodity sell-off sparked by falls in oil following news of a proposed Venezuelan-brokered peace plan for Libya.
That news sent Brent crude oil prices falling by more than $3 dollars in around an hour, before paring about half the loss on analyst skepticism about the success of such a plan.
Gold is seen consolidating around current levels, as investors who hold bullish views on bullion take advantage of the price fall in the previous session.
“Inflationary fears globally will remain for the medium-long term, especially as inflation in large developing economies such as China, India and Brazil is already running high,” said Li Ning, an analyst at Shanghai CIFCO Futures.
She warned, however, some correction could take place after gold’s strong rally over the past month or so. But, she said, gold should find strong support at the $1,400 level.
Technical analysis showed that gold might be embarking on a correction which could extend to $1,374 next week, according to Reuters market analyst Wang Tao.
The euro was steady versus the dollar on Friday after ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet dropped a bombshell on markets Thursday explicitly saying an interest rate hike at the next meeting is possible, sending the single currency to a near four month high.
A “twenty or thirty basis point hike in interest rates is unlikely to tame inflation,” said the Tokyo-based trader.
He added that the market was looking for signs whether the United States would complete the second phase of quantitative easing, cut it short, or even launch a third round of debt purchases.
Spot palladium fell 0.8 percent at $805.47 an ounce, after the CME Group announced it will raise the margin requirements on NYMEX-traded palladium by 25 percent, effective after the close of business on March 4.
The most active NYMEX palladium declined 0.7 percent at $809.4.
Source: Reuters
There is no excuse for our leaders not to lift the living standards of their citizens, just as George Soros said today Friday March 4, 2011.
Especially Ghana if COCOA, OIL, GOLD is all time high in prices.
It will be a shame for Ghana to be borrowing money, begging for handouts and have citizens generations to come in poverty as well as having leaders at all levels having huge foreign accounts in Cayman Islands, Switzerland etc. Canada is making legislation to stop such leaders hiding money in this country. It was the same in Cuba years back when leaders steal the country’s money and hide it in Cuba.