Gold: Marginally declining week despite gains of 1.2% on Friday

Gold ended the week with gains, finding support on Friday for the disappointing data for the jobs in November in the USA that were announced today. However, the precious metal did not manage to escape the negative ground on a weekly basis, as on Thursday it fell to the lowest level of the last 7 weeks.

In particular, according to the US Treasury Department, new jobs grew at a slower pace than expected in November, although companies have been more aggressive in hiring workers, which shows that the largest labor shortage for decades continues to slow down the economic recovery.

The U.S. economy added 210,000 new jobs last month, with recruitment growth the smallest in a year and well below expectations. Economists polled by Wall Street expected 573,000 new jobs.

The unemployment rate in the US fell to 4.2% from 4.6%, recording a new pandemic low. However, economists say the official unemployment rate is probably a few percentage points lower than the real thing.

“Gold has not performed well this week as we worry about deflation,” said James Hatzigiannis, an analyst at Ploutus Capital Advisors. The US Federal Reserve is going to be more aggressive and with rising inflation, this could “result in the Fed stopping bond purchases earlier than expected,” he added. “That’s why we do not see gold operating as a safe haven for investment as usual,” he said.

In the meantime, the dollar gained about 0.1% to 96,223 points on Friday according to the ICE US Dollar index, while its performance 10-year government bond US was down 9 basis points at 1.36%.

In this climate, the gold delivery in February It added $ 21.20, or 1.2%, to $ 1,783.90 an ounce on Friday. On a weekly basis, the precious metal lost about 0.1%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

As for the other metals, the March delivery silver rose 0.7% to $ 22,481 an ounce, but recorded weekly losses of 2.7%.

THE March delivery copper slipped 0.7% to $ 4,267 a pound on Friday, losing 0.4% on the week.

The January delivery contract for platinum lost 0.7% to $ 926.20 an ounce, while the week fell 2.9%, and the palladium delivery in March added 2.3% to $ 1,812.60 an ounce, closing up 1.3% on the week.