Weekly Round-Up: Gold Price Leaps on US Jobs Data

Gold prices jumped 2.3 percent on Friday following the release of poor US jobs data. Overall, the yellow metal was up 3.08 percent for the week.
As per the Wall Street Journal, US jobs data released Friday showed that hiring is slowing down. This has dampened expectations that the Federal Reserve will increase interest rates this month. Over the month of May, market watchers put the probability of the fed raising interest rates around 28 percent.
“Now that we just saw some really terrible data … the chances of [the Fed] moving forward with a rate increase are all out the window,” said Bob Haberkorn, senior market strategist at RJO Futures, told the Journal.
Silver prices were also on the rise this week, gaining 2.19 percent over the past five days and jumping 2.07 percent on Friday alone. As of 2:14 p.m. EST, silver prices were trading at $16.31 per ounce.
In an interview with Bloomberg last week, First Majestic Silver (TSX:FR) CEO Keith Neumeyer said that he sees silver prices surging as high as $140 per ounce by 2019. A panel of analysts surveyed by FocusEconomics sees silver prices averaging at $15.70 per ounce by the end of 2016, hitting $17.30 by the end of the year.

On the base metals side of things, comex copper prices also saw a spike on Friday, but finished the week down overall, losing 0.41 percent to finish at $2.13 per pound. The red metal gained 1.37 percent during Friday trading hours.
This Tuesday, BMO Capital Markets analyst Jessica Fung stated that she sees further potential for the copper price to drop in the near term, the Financial Post reported. Still, she was more positive on the metal in the medium term.
Finally, spot oil prices were down for the week, losing 2.34 percent to trade at $48.52 per barrel as of 2:36 p.m. EST. Unlike gold and silver—and even copper on Friday—a lower US dollar did not stimulate the oil price, oilprice.com reported.
Meanwhile, in a meeting held Thursday, OPEC members once again decided against freezing production levels, according to Bloomberg. Still, members were more optimistic about the oil market than they have been.
“OPEC is back, stronger,” said Nigeria’s Mohammed Barkindo, appointed as the group’s new secretary-general during the meeting. “We are going to work to regain the unity of the organization and the confidence of the international community.”
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Securities Disclosure: I, Teresa Matich, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article. 
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