Gold futures on Friday swung around after a report on U.S. employment in March indicated that the damage from coronavirus related business shutdowns were already having a big impact on the labor market.
Friday’s nonfarm-payrolls report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the U.S. lost 701,000 jobs last month, representing the biggest monthly decline in 11 years and one of the largest ever, but it’s likely only a harbinger of what is ahead in coming months.
The unemployment figures far exceeded estimates from economists for job losses of 83,000, polled by MarketWatch. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, rose to 4.4% from a 50-year low of 3.5% in February. The huge increase in weekly new jobless claims reported Thursday, however, suggests the rate has actually surged to around 10%.
The grim jobs figures hardly reflect the full extent of the state of the labor market, which likely seen around 10 million people put out of work in the past few weeks alone, as personal and business activity has come to a screeching halt in an effort to prevent the spread of the COVID-19, the deadly infection that was first identified in December in China and that has spread to more than one million people world-wide.
June gold futures GCM20, -0.12% on Comex, which were bouncing around early Friday, at last check, down $4.50, or 0.3%, at $1,634.20 an ounce, after surging 2.9% on Thursday, marking its first gain in five session. For the week, gold is set for a weekly advance of 0.8%, according to FactSet data.
Stephen Inness, chief market strategist at AxiCorp, said that gold’s move on Thursday may have taken some steam out of its potential to rally on Friday, given the metal’s reaction to jobless claims.
“But with near term positioning, a bit stretched, it’s difficult to gauge if there still enough meat on the bone to whet investors appetite for bullion on a Friday after a roller-coaster week,” he wrote.
May silver SIK20, -0.78% was trading 13 cents, or 0.9%, lower at $14.520 an ounce. For the week, gold’s sister metal is looking at a weekly loss of 0.3%.
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