WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold futures settled notably lower on Friday as the dollar surged and bond yields moved higher after data showed a bigger than expected jump in U.S. non-farm payroll employment in the month of July.
The upbeat jobs data has raised speculation that the Federal Reserve will aggressively tighten its policy stance at the upcoming meetings.
The dollar index surged to 106.93 after the release of the non-farm payroll data, but pared some gains and dropped to 106.56 later on. Still, the index was up more than 0.8% from the previous close.
Gold futures for December ended lower by $15.70 at $1,791.20 an ounce.
Silver futures for September ended down by $0.280 at $19.842 an ounce, while Copper futures for September settled at $3.5520 per pound, up $0.0705 from the previous close.
Data from the Labor Department showed non-farm payroll employment in the U.S. spiked by 528,000 jobs in July after surging by an upwardly revised 398,000 jobs in June.
Economists had expected employment to climb by about 250,000 jobs compared to the addition of 372,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.
With the stronger than expected job growth, the unemployment rate unexpectedly edged down to 3.5% in July from 3.6% in June. The unemployment rate was expected to remain unchanged.
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