Gold Down, Investors Look Ahead to Latest U.S. Jobs Report

Gold was down on Monday morning in Asia, as the dollar hovered near a one-month low. The health of the U.S. labor market is also on investors’ minds as they await the country’s latest job report.

Gold futures were down 0.27% to $1,812.35 by 1:31 PM ET (5:31 AM GMT), rolling over to the Dec 21 contract on Aug. 1. The yellow metal retreated from a two-week high on Friday as the dollar strengthened from a one-month low.

The dollar, which usually moves inversely to gold, inched down on Monday. It was down 0.8% during the previous week, its worst weekly performance in over two months.

The U.S. jobs report for July, including non-farm payrolls, will be released on Friday.

“The market is fearful of a stronger payroll data, which will make the dollar stronger… It will probably keep them from strapping on a lot of interest rate sensitive risks,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.

The data will give investors more insight into the timeline for the U.S. Federal Reserve to begin asset tapering, he added.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell warned that interest rate hikes were “ways away” and the job market still had “some ground to cover,” as he handed down the Fed’s policy decision during the past week, which sent gold jumping more than 1%.

The Reserve Bank of Australia and Bank of England will hand down their respective policy decisions on Tuesday and Thursday.

On the technical front, spot gold may revisit its low of $1,789.98 per ounce hit on Jul. 23, as it failed again to break a resistance at $1,832.80, said Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.

In other precious metals, silver was flat at $25.46, palladium gained 0.5% and platinum rose 0.9%.