Investing.com - Gold rallied on Friday after data showing that the U.S. economy added far fewer jobs than expected last month indicated that interest rates are likely to remain on hold until early next year.
Gold for December delivery jumped 2.17% to $1,137.9 in late trade on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
For the week, though, gold futures ended down 0.78% after falls earlier in the week amid uncertainty over how soon the U.S. central bank will start to tighten monetary policy.
The Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added just 142,000 jobs last month, well below expectations of the 201,000 expected by economists.
August’s reading was revised down to 135,000, from the initial reported figure of 173,000.
Average hourly earnings were flat month-on-month and the labor force participation rate fell to just 62.4%, down from 62.6% in August. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.1%, in line with forecasts.
The report underlined fears that a slowdown in global economic growth has spread to the U.S. economy and prompted investors to push back expectations on the timing of an initial rate hike by the Federal Reserve to early 2016.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was last down 0.31% to 96.04 after falling to two-week lows of 95.3 immediately following the report.
Gold would benefit from any delay in raising U.S. interest rates as the precious metal would struggle to compete with yield-bearing assets. Higher rates would also boost the dollar, which would make dollar-denominated gold more expensive for holders of other currencies.
Elsewhere in precious metals trading, silver futures for December delivery jumped 4.85% to $15.21 and platinum was up 0.61% to $910.75.