Gold notches daily

Gold futures on Friday logged a daily and weekly advance on the back of U.S.-China trade-war jitters, which flared up late Thursday and roiled global stocks, driving investors into assets perceived as havens.

A mostly lackluster U.S. employment reading for the March, which nicked the dollar index and buttressed already deep losses for stocks, also helped lift gold.

The White House said in a statement after the market close Thursday that President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Trade Representative to consider an extra $100 billion in Chinese goods to face tariffs and to identify the products that could be targeted.

June gold GCM8, +0.66% closed up $7.60, or 0.6%, at $1,336.10 an ounce, while the commodity booked a weekly gain of 0.9%, or $11.90, based settlement values for the most-active contract last week. The metal has posted a weekly gain for two of the past three weeks.

May silver SIK8, +0.06% used both for industrial purposes, and so more sensitive to trade issues, and as a haven financial asset, edged 0.7 cent higher, or less than 0.1%, at $16.362 an ounce, after starting Friday trading in the red. For the week, silver futures gained 0.7%.

A Chinese holiday on Friday kept trading volume thin.

The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, -0.42% which measures the greenback against six major rivals, slipped about 0.3% to 90.10 after finishing at a two-week high Thursday. The dollar finished the week with a slight loss. A weaker dollar can make commodities more attractive to buyers using other currencies.

Government data showed that the U.S. created 103,000 new jobs in March to mark the smallest gain since last fall, although within the tightest labor market in nearly two decades. The unemployment rate remained at a 17-year low of 4.1%. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a stronger gain of 170,000 nonfarm jobs.

For inflation watchers, including those interested in gold as an inflation hedge, average wages rose 8 cents, or 0.3%, to $26.82 an hour. The 12-month increase in pay picked up slightly to 2.7% from 2.6%.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s in a talk at the Economic Club of Chicago said he advocated a “patient” approach to raising interest rates.

Meanwhile, copper for May delivery HGK8, -1.17% shed 1.6 cents, or 0.5%, at $3.0585 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, hurt by the tit-for-tat trade battle between the two biggest economies in the world, with industrial assets taking it on the chin the most amid the tariff spat. However, over the week, the metal registered a weekly rise of about 1.9%.

In exchange-traded funds, the SPDR Gold Shares ETF GLD, +0.47%  fell 0.2%, breaking from gold futures. The iShares Silver Trust SLV, -0.13%  fell 0.6%, while the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners GDX, +0.46%  fell 0.5%.

Among other metals, July platinum PLN8, +0.58% rose $2.20, or 0.2%, to $914.10 an ounce. Platinum, however, has shed 2.8% over the past week.

June palladium PAM8, -0.18% fell $4,95, or 0.5%, to $895.15 an ounce. For the week, the metal has tumbled 7.1%, representing its worst weekly drop since the week ended Feb. 9, when it fell 7.8%.

Source:marketwatch.com