By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com - Gold returned to the $1,900 fold on Monday for the first time in three trading sessions as the dollar and U.S. bond yields continued their retreat on lackluster U.S. jobs growth for May.
Gold had waddled in $1,800 territory since Thursday as the dollar and yields turned higher on weekly U.S. employment claims that came in at their lowest since the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020.
The non-farm payrolls for all of May, released a day later, showed the U.S. added just 559,000 new jobs for last month — some 90,000 below forecast — although the unemployment rate itself fell by three percentage points to 5.8%. That helped gold claw back some losses before the weekend, paving the way for its return to $1,900 by Monday.
“Wall Street should see investor demand improve for safe-havens such as gold, as global tax and inflation concerns intensify,” said Ed Moya, head of U.S. research at online broker OANDA. “Gold faces short-term resistance at the $1,925 level.”
The front-month gold futures contract on New York’s Comex settled at $1,898.80 per ounce, up $6.80, or 1%. In post-settlement trade, however, it reached $1,902.45 by 3:15 PM ET (19:15 GMT).
The spot price of gold, reflective of real-time trades in bullion, was at $1,889.45 by 3:15 PM ET after an intraday high at $1,900.03.
The Dollar Index, which pits the greenback against the euro and five other major currencies, hit an intraday bottom of 89.880, below the key 90 level.
Yields tied to the U.S. 10-year Treasury note was up 1.56% versus Thursday’s peak of 1.64%.