The eagerly awaited Non Farm Payrolls (NFP) number was released on Friday, with the expectation of around 190,000 new jobs created in the US economy in March.
Although the weak ADP jobs report earlier in the week had signalled that the NFP number might fall short of this expectation (and many online commentators were suggesting 160,000 might be a more realistic print), nobody was prepared for such an abysmal announcement of a mere 88,000 new jobs.
Gold shot higher on the release of the data, hitting 1575 almost instantly before quickly falling back to the mid-1560s. This initial reaction was rather muted, considering the importance of the jobs number and the size of the miss.
However, as the afternoon session went on and the impact of the feeble NFP number was digested further, gold started rallying strongly into the close, finishing at the highs of the day at 1583. The past 5 or 6 major economic data releases out of the US have all missed expectations, many of them by a wide margin, making the likelihood of a reduction or halting of Quantitative Easing significantly less than even a week ago.
This should pressure the dollar and give gold a much needed boost - this, together with the escalation of hostilities in nuclear armed North Korea, should see gold move higher this week on the back of shorts covering their positions and new longs entering the market. Oil is stabilising after sharp falls last week and again looks ready to move higher.
Gold needs to move above 1620 to confirm an intermediate bottom is in and kick start a long awaited rally in gold.
Today's video for subscribers looks at Friday's trading in more detail and some patterns we look for that signal when a bottom is in.
Although the weak ADP jobs report earlier in the week had signalled that the NFP number might fall short of this expectation (and many online commentators were suggesting 160,000 might be a more realistic print), nobody was prepared for such an abysmal announcement of a mere 88,000 new jobs.
Gold shot higher on the release of the data, hitting 1575 almost instantly before quickly falling back to the mid-1560s. This initial reaction was rather muted, considering the importance of the jobs number and the size of the miss.
However, as the afternoon session went on and the impact of the feeble NFP number was digested further, gold started rallying strongly into the close, finishing at the highs of the day at 1583. The past 5 or 6 major economic data releases out of the US have all missed expectations, many of them by a wide margin, making the likelihood of a reduction or halting of Quantitative Easing significantly less than even a week ago.
This should pressure the dollar and give gold a much needed boost - this, together with the escalation of hostilities in nuclear armed North Korea, should see gold move higher this week on the back of shorts covering their positions and new longs entering the market. Oil is stabilising after sharp falls last week and again looks ready to move higher.
Gold needs to move above 1620 to confirm an intermediate bottom is in and kick start a long awaited rally in gold.
Today's video for subscribers looks at Friday's trading in more detail and some patterns we look for that signal when a bottom is in.