MarketWatch/Mark DeCambre/05-05-17
Gold futures on Friday pared gains but remained in positive territory after April’s strong jobs report was seen keeping the Federal Reserve on a path of higher interest rates, with another hike increasingly likely as soon as next month.
“This [jobs] report falls into the camp of the U.S. monetary policy hawks, who want to see U.S. interest rates rise at a faster pace,” said Jim Wyckoff, senior metals analyst at Kitco.
…Labor-market data are significant for gold traders because it is one of the economic reports closely followed by the Fed as the central bank determines the pace of its monetary-policy-normalization initiative. The Fed is expected to lift rates two additional times in 2017 and its policy update released on Wednesday helped to affirm that expectation.
