WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold wobbled Friday as traders struggled to make sense of a mixed U.S. jobs report.
Gold was up $1.50 at $1323 an ounce, unable to sustain direcetion over the course of the day. Rising stocks limited the precious metal's safe haven appeal.
The U.S. created 313,000 new jobs in February, the biggest gain since mid-2016. However, the 12-month increase in worker pay declined to 2.6% from 2.8%, a sign that wages may not be keeping up with inflation.
Economists had expected employment to climb by 200,000 jobs, matching the increase originally reported for the previous month.
Despite the stronger than expected job growth, the unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent in February. The unemployment rate had been expected to dip to 4.0 percent.
Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans is afraid that inflation is not rising fast enough to warrant the gradual rates projected for 2018.
Evans wants to 'wait a little longer' than the upcoming March FOMC meeting before raising interest rates by a quarter percentage point, he tells CNBC.
'My own preference would be to wait a little bit longer, let the March anomalous inflation rate from a year ago fall out,' said Evans, a highly respected but non-voting member of the FOMC this year.
'Let's make sure these sort of Amazon, disruptive kind of pricing models aren't continuing to find their way into keeping inflation lower than that,' he added.
He also wants to see stronger wage growth.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX