Gold Rises After US ADP Adds Fewer Jobs Than Expected

Gold prices rose after a report showed that U.S. employers added fewer workers than forecast last month, boosting demand for the precious metal as a haven.

Companies added 208,000 employees last month, figures from ADP Research Institute showed. That trailed the median forecast of 222,000 in a Bloomberg survey of economists. A whipsaw in crude-oil futures is spurring the biggest price swings for gold in almost nine months. Shanghai trading in the metal has topped last year’s record.

On Dec. 1, gold surged 3.6 percent, the most in 14 months, as oil rebounded from a five-year low. In November, the metal slumped to a four-year low as the dollar rallied and demand ebbed for an inflation hedge. Federal Reserve officials have said that lower energy prices may hold down consumer costs in the near term.

“Gold has got a slight support from the weaker ADP numbers, but I will still be a seller on rallies,” Tommy Capalbo, a broker at Newedge Group in New York, said in a telephone interview. “We will continue to see higher volatility in gold with oil and interest rate-hike uncertainty.”

Gold futures for February delivery rose 0.9 percent to $1,210 an ounce at 10:30 a.m. on the Comex in New York. The metal’s 60-day volatility climbed to the highest since March.

via Bloomberg

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza