The price of gold futures barely moved. under the pressure of the dollar’s appreciation which will reduce the attractiveness of gold Making gold contracts more expensive for holders of other currencies.
The market is also being affected by expectations that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will continue to raise interest rates. Though the US released the nonfarm payrolls slowdown tonight.
At 19:32 Thai time, the COMEX (Commodity Exchange) gold contract is delivered in February. plus $0.30 or 0.02% at $1,840.90/ounce
Market Expects The US Department of Labor will release just 200,000 jobs in December. After adding 263,000 jobs in November And the unemployment rate is expected to remain stable at 3.7%.
If the employment numbers come out as expected by the market. It will employ nearly 5 million US jobs in 2022, which will be second-highest after 6.7 million jobs in 2021 following a record 9.3 million job slump in 2020, which has been affected by the spread of COVID-19
“The Fed wants to see 100,000 average monthly jobs or less. This is in line with slowing job market conditions,” said Nick Bunker, director of research at Indeed Hiring Lab.
The US is due to release nonfarm payrolls data later tonight. after revealing lower-than-expected unemployment numbers and higher-than-expected private employment numbers yesterday
The Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell by 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 204,000 last week. which is the lowest level since September and below analyst expectations by 225,000.
The number of Americans still filing for unemployment benefits dropped from 24,000 to 1.694 million.
Meanwhile, Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) said private sector employment rose by 235,000 in December. This was above analyst expectations of 153,000 jobs from 127,000 in November.
Services added 213,000 jobs in December. While the manufacturing sector added 22,000 jobs.
Investors have raised expectations that the Fed will raise interest rates by 0.50% in February, the Fed’s first monetary policy meeting this year. Following the release of data indicating a strong job market yesterday.
