Price advances for gold, silver after mostly as-expected U.S. jobs data

(Kitco News) - Gold and silver futures prices are trading higher in early U.S. dealings Friday, following the key U.S. data point of the day that saw the U.S. January jobs report come in mostly as expected. Gold and silver did rally modestly after the jobs report because even though there were no big surprises in the data, the data does suggest a U.S. economy that is listing again. April gold futures were last up $12.60 at $1,803.40 and March Comex silver was last up $0.461 at $26.695 an ounce.

The U.S. employment situation report for January, arguably the most important U.S. data point of the month, showed a non-farm payrolls rise of 49,000 and an unemployment rate of 6.3%. The non-farm jobs number was very close to market expectations and the unemployment rate was a bit lower than expected. Still, the data suggests the world’s largest economy is still far from fully recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic and is still down 12 million jobs from last year at this time.

Global stock markets were mixed to firmer overnight. U.S. stock indexes are pointed toward higher openings and record highs when the New York day session begins. Once again, the U.S. stock index bulls have shown keen resilience in coming right back from recent solid losses, to keep their longer-term price uptrends alive and well. Trader/investor risk sentiment continues upbeat. The Biden administration is working to get fresh stimulus funds to Americans and such will likely occur in the coming weeks. Also, new Covid 19 cases and hospitalizations in the U.S. are ticking down a bit, suggesting the virus may have already peaked.