Gold Price Slides on Jobs Numbers

San Francisco (Apr 1)  Gold fell more than 1% on Friday after  U.S.  March payrolls data beat expectations, calming some fears about the  U.S.  economy and stiumlating speculation about the timing of likely interest rate hikes by the  Federal Reserve  this year.

 U.S.  employers added 215,000 jobs in March, the payrolls report showed, against expectations for 205,000.  U.S.  interest rate futures suggested traders are now betting the Fed will next raise rates as soon as November, versus December ahead of the report.

Spot gold was down 1% at  $1,220.07   U.S.  an ounce, having earlier touched a low of  $1,208.45  , while  U.S.  gold futures for June delivery settled down  $12.10  an ounce at  $1223.50   U.S 

The metal saw its biggest quarterly rise in nearly 30 years in the three months to March, rallying more than 16% as expectations faded that the Fed would move to normalize interest rates after their first increase in nearly a decade in December.

Silver futures were down 2.7% at  $15.05   U.S.  an ounce, while platinum futures were down 1.9%at  $959.50   U.S.  an ounce and palladium futures were nearly flat at  $563.95   U.S.  an ounce.

Source: KitcoNews