Gold Buyers - Gold Futures Rise Ahead of U.S. Jobs Data

Source - http://www.marketwatch.com/
By - Sarah Turner
Category - Gold Buyers

Posted By -  http://tinyurl.com/DiamondBuyer

Gold Buyers

SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Gold futures rose on Friday, ahead of U.S. jobs data that are expected to give investors more clues on the health of the economy. 

Gold for delivery in April GCJ3 -0.03%  rose 70 cents to $1,662.70 an ounce in electronic trading hours on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. 

The gains came after gold futures fell more than 1% Thursday, as profit-taking set in following an advance fueled by the surprise fourth-quarter contraction for the U.S. economy seen in data earlier this week. 

“Buyers are simply not willing to hold their long positions going into Friday’s session because of the Chinese manufacturing [Purchasing Managers’ Index] and U.S. nonfarm payrolls numbers,” said Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at GFT Markets, in a note out early 

The Chinese manufacturing data, released during the Asian session Friday, painted a mixed picture for the key sector. 

An official government manufacturing index slipped to 50.4 from December’s 50.6, while a rival survey from HSBC showed a rise to 52.3 in January from 51.5 in December. Still, both indexes remained above the 50 mark separating growth from contraction.

Meanwhile, the nonfarm payrolls data are expected to show that the U.S. economy added 170,000 jobs in January and a drop in the unemployment rate to 7.7% from 7.8%, according to a MarketWatch survey of economists. 

“A disappointing figure may help boost [gold] prices, in our view,” said HSBC metal analysts. As was the case after this week’s U.S. gross domestic product data, gold tends to benefit from safe-haven buying if investors are concerned about economic developments. 

Around the wider metals complex, silver for March delivery SIH3 -0.12%  rose 9 cents to $31.44 an ounce, and April platinum PLJ3 +0.26%  advanced $1.60 to $1,677.00 an ounce. 

March palladium PAH3 -0.64%  declined $4.15 to $741.55 an ounce, while copper for delivery in the same month HGH3 -0.23%  lost 1 cent to $3.73 a pound.