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The yellow metal was pressured by the US dollar, which rose on the country’s latest payroll report, but nevertheless performed well for the week as a whole. Meanwhile, silver and oil slipped Friday as copper rose.
Gold fell 0.5 percent to trade at $1,199.44 per ounce on Friday, according to Reuters. The metal was pressured by the US dollar, which rose on the country’s latest payroll report, but nevertheless had its best week in six months.
The report, released by the US Labor Department, shows that the country added 321,000 jobs in November, and that the unemployment rate remained at 5.8 percent. That’s a greater gain in jobs than analysts had forecast, and it indicates a quickly growing economy. On average this year, the US has added 224,000 jobs each month.
For their part, US gold futures for December delivery fell $7.90, to $1,199.80. Silver was also down — according to Reuters it dropped 0.5 percent, to $16.34 per ounce, on Friday.
On the flip side, Reuters states in another article that London Metal Exchange copper rose 0.4 percent, to $6,488 per tonne, after nearing one-week highs in Thursday’s session. The metal is expected to gain 2 percent this week for its biggest weekly rise since August. However, the dollar’s continued rise is making copper more expensive for investors who hold other currencies.
Copper on the COMEX in New York rose 0.2 percent, to $2.9195 per pound, according to Bloomberg, for a total rise of 2.6 percent for the week.
Finally, Brent crude oil fell to $69.28 a barrel, and is on track to finish below $70 a barrel for the first time since 2010. Cuts to selling prices in Saudi Arabia were a major factor in this fall.
“It’s been weighing on the market, showing that OPEC is not ready to end its price war,” Commerzbank analyst Eugen Weinberg told Reuters. “The lower the better seems to be the new paradigm for OPEC.”