Gold prices rise

BENGALURU. — Gold rose for the second consecutive session yesterday, after falling in the preceding eight, buoyed by post-holiday buying in China and a weaker dollar, while a slowdown in US job growth bolstered the expectation that US interest rate hikes would be only gradual.

Spot gold was up 0,6 percent at $1 263,48 per ounce by 5am GMT. US gold futures rose more than 1 percent to $1 265,30 per ounce.

“Gold prices are quite appealing after the recent correction. In China, what we see today (after a week-long holiday) is that there is some demand to buy gold following its dip,” said Richard Xu, a fund manager at HuaAn Gold, China’s top gold exchange-traded fund (ETF).

The metal touched a four-month low of $1 241,20 on Friday. Spot gold ended about 4,5 percent lower last week, its biggest weekly decline since November 2015.

“We expect gold to remain buoyant, looking for support around $1 250 following Friday’s encouraging move back above the level on the less than impressive US jobs data,” MKS PAMP Group trader Sam Laughlin said in a note.

The metal is highly sensitive to US interest rates, increases in which lift the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding gold while boosting the dollar, in which it is priced.

US employment growth eased for the third consecutive month in September and the jobless rate rose, the Labour Department said in a report on Friday. The data showed that the economy was on firm ground, but not growing so swiftly as to knock the US central bank off its game plan of raising borrowing costs only gradually.