US MIDDAY: gold drops

04 Oct, 2008

New York gold futures fell by more than 2 percent on Friday, losing ground when the dollar advanced on the euro on news of a steady employment rate in the US September jobs report, but gold soon cut its losses to trade moderately lower, traders said.
December gold lost $1.00, or 0.12 percent, to $843.30 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. December gold fell as low as $822.50, a 2-1/2 week low, from a $852.70 high. As forecast, the US September unemployment rate held steady at 6.1 percent.
"The unemployment rate holding steady - which somewhat mitigated the weakness. The market is not showing any sign yet of abandoning the strong US dollar theme of the week, " Brian Dolan, chief currency strategist, Forex.com in New Jersey said. September payrolls drop largest since March 2003. July payrolls downwardly revised to 67,000 from 60,000 loss.
"The US economy is shrinking, and there will be many more awful reports like this. Payrolls were weak everywhere except in government and education; the big change is in services," Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist, High Frequency Economics, Valhalla, New York. Spot gold was modestly lower at $830/832 an ounce, lower than $838.00/841.00 an ounce at 2:29 pm EDT (1829 GMT) Thursday.
December silver jumped $30.0 cents or 2.70 percent to $11.42 an ounce, in a range from $10.84 to $11.58 an ounce. Comex estimated 0900 am volume at 9,199 lots. Spot silver rose to $11.30/11.40 an ounce, up from $11.07/11.15 an ounce late on Thursday.
Nymex January platinum held below the psychological $1,000 mark, falling $12.20, or 1.24 percent, to $974.40 an ounce. Spot platinum slipped to $953.50/973.50 an ounce. December palladium fell by $3.20 or 1.57 percent to $200.0 an ounce. Its low extended to $194 from a high at $207.50 an ounce. Spot palladium slid to $193.50/203.50 an ounce.

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