By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Gold was up on Friday morning in Asia, eking out small gains as the dollar weakened. Investors now await the latest U.S. jobs report to gauge the Federal Reserve’s timeline on asset purchases and interest rate hikes.
Gold futures inched up 0.08% to $1,812.95 by 1:13 AM ET (5:13 AM GMT) but was headed towards its first weekly decline in four. The dollar, which usually moves inversely to gold, inched up on Friday but remained near a one-month low.
The jobs report, including non-farm payrolls, is due later in the day. It will be a focal point for investors as labor market recovery is one of the Fed’s requirements before it begins asset tapering and interest rate hikes.
Ahead of the report’s release, data released on Thursday showed that Americans filed 340,000 initial jobless claims during the past week. The number was lower than the 345,000 claims in forecasts prepared by Investing.com and the 354,000 claims filed during the previous week.
The data also said that layoffs dropped to their lowest level in more than 24 years in August, suggesting that the labor market recovery was holding strong even as the number of COVID-19 cases continues on an upward trend both in the U.S. and globally.
In Asia Pacific, China’s Caixin services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for August was 46.7, below the 50-mark indicating growth.
Meanwhile, SPDR Gold Trust (P:GLD) said its holdings fell 0.2% to 998.52 tons on Thursday, its lowest level since April 2020. Russia also said its international gold and foreign currency reserves rose to a record $615.6 billion after receiving a tranche from the International Monetary Fund.
In other precious metals, silver edged up 0.2%, platinum inched up 0.1% and palladium was up 0.3%.