Gold goes higher despite dollar strength

Chicago (Dec 8)  Gold shrugged of the surge in dollar on Friday after the bumper non-farm payrolls number.

The US economy added 321,000 jobs last month, the largest monthly increase in almost three years, while October’s figure was also revised up to 243,000 from 214,000.

As Wall Street opened, the spot price had risen by almost US$5 to US$1,197, reclaiming most of the ground lost at the end of last week.

The speed of job creation will be key to how quickly the US Federal Reserve raises interest rates, something seen as bad for gold as it makes bonds more appealing and lifts the dollar.

Consensus is still for the second half of 2015 for the first US rate rise, but if non-farm data continues to be as strong it will be June rather than September economists said.

Gold continues to move out of exchange traded funds (ETFs), albeit the pace has slowed to a trickle recently while the mood among short-term speculators has also improved.

Long positions in gold on US futures exchange Comex rose to their highest on a net basis for six weeks at the end of the week to 2 December.

A sharp reduction in short positions also helped, although both numbers were for a period ahead of the jobs data for November.

Silver was a touch lower at US$16.24, while platinum added US$ to US$1,228.

Source: ProactiveInvestors