Gold pulled back from its session highs to hover around $5,060 an ounce after a surprisingly strong U.S. jobs report threw cold water on hopes for an early Fed rate cut. The yellow metal had been gaining ground earlier in the day, but that momentum faded fast once the labor numbers hit.
And honestly, the data was hard to ignore. January payrolls came in at 130K nearly double the 70K Wall Street was expecting and a massive jump from December's downwardly revised 48K. Unemployment ticked lower to 4.3%, and wages kept climbing at a stubborn pace. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% on the month, pushing the annual number to 3.7%. Not exactly the kind of softening the Fed needs to see before reaching for the rate-cut button.
That recalibration rippled through markets pretty quickly. Traders who had been banking on a June cut are now looking at July as the more realistic timeline for even a modest 25-basis-point move. Treasury yields crept higher on the back of that shift, and that put a lid on gold's ability to push further.
But here's the thing none of this has broken the bigger picture for gold. Prices are still sitting near multi-week highs, and the reasons behind that haven't gone anywhere. The Fed is still expected to ease at some point this year, geopolitical uncertainty isn't exactly fading, and central banks keep stacking metal. China's PBoC added to its reserves again, which has been one of the most consistent demand signals in the market for months now.
So what you're left with is a tug-of-war. On one side, resilient U.S. economic data making it harder for the Fed to justify moving quickly. On the other, deep structural buying and macro tailwinds that keep putting a floor under prices every time gold tries to sell off. Short-term headwinds are real, but the underlying bid isn't going anywhere fast.
#gold #GOLD_UPDATE $XAU #GoldSilverRally
