Gold $2380, Silver $31 on NFP as UK Centre-Left Wins Landslide Before France Votes
Friday, 7/05/2024 16:30
FURTHER weakness in US jobs data sent the price of gold jumping to 1-month Dollar highs on Friday, but the precious metal rose only to 2-week highs in Euro and Sterling terms as France's far-right National Rally headed for a win but no outright majority in this Sunday's vote, while the UK's centre-left Labour Party warned of geopolitical storms after winning what one pundit called "a loveless landslide" in the 2024 General Election.
Silver bullion followed and extended the gains in Dollar gold prices as June's non-farm payrolls estimate confirmed the
US jobs market slowdown shown in data earlier this week, rising 5.1% for the week and hitting 1-month highs at $31 per Troy ounce in late London trade.
Voter turn-out in Iran meantime fell to
a record low as reformist Masoud Pezeshkian vied with hard-line conservative Saeed Jalili to become president of the Islamic theocracy after Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a
helicopter crash in May.
Net job creation on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' NFP data slowed by 25% last month from May's figure, down to the weakest June addition since 2019 at 206,000.
That edged the US unemployment rate up to its highest since October 2021 at 4.1%.
Average hourly US wages meantime rose 3.9% from 12 months before, the slowest increase in over 3 years.
Raising expectations that the Federal Reserve will finally start cutting US interest rates from today's 2-decade high in September – eve of the presidential ballot between Joe Biden and Donald Trump – the data saw Dollar gold prices spike to $2380 per Troy ounce, 2.1% higher from last Friday, as the US currency fell for the 7th session running against the world's other major currencies.
Euro gold in contrast added only 1.0% for the week, fixing around €2200 per Troy ounce in London's 3pm benchmarking auction.
The
UK Pound price of gold was more muted still, adding 0.8% from last Friday to £1860.
"We've had a breakthrough" said the US White House late Thursday of
cease-fire talks it's brokering between Israel and Hamas.
But Israeli forces continued their
air and ground attacks in Gaza today, while Hezbollah –Hamas' fellow Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon – vowed further revenge after attacking the Golan Heights for the week's killing of a senior commander.
"No matter how fierce the storms of history, one of the great strengths of this nation has always been our ability to navigate away to calmer waters," said UK Labour leader and now Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday before entering 10 Downing Street after a resounding defeat of the ruling Conservative Party in the
2024 General Election.
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Last week the Philippines' ambassador to Washington warned of a
possible nuclear conflict affecting "the entire Asian region" as a result of China blocking and ramming boats trying to resupply a ship deliberately grounded in 1999 to assert Manila's claim on the Second Thomas Shoal, now the "most dangerous flashpoint" in Beijing's
decades-long disputes with its maritime neighbors.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban today caused outrage among the European Union – of which he now holds the rotating presidency –
by visiting Russia's President Vladimir Putin to discuss "action [towards] peace" in Moscow's 2-year invasion of Ukraine, now
estimated to have killed at least 8,500 Ukrainian civilians and perhaps
120,000 Russia soldiers.
With the weak US jobs data driving bond yields lower as gold prices rose, global stock markets slipped meanwhile, with London's FTSE All Share turning an initial 0.5% rise on news of Starmer's landslide – in which Labour took only 1/3rd of all votes nationally but won 2/3rds of the seats in the House of Commons – into a 0.5% loss by Friday afternoon.
"French people are fed up of being lectured and advised on how to vote," said Front National's Le Pen today to CNN, dismissing both an
opinion poll saying that a centrist pact to block a far-right landslide looks to be succeeding and a
plea to voters from soccer star Kylian Mbappé not to "leave our country in the hands of these people...It's catastrophic."
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