Gold prices pared losses on Thursday as investors sifted a slightly disappointing U.S. employment report for clues as to the path of U.S. monetary policy. The most actively traded contract, for August delivery, was recently down $8.30, or 0.7%, at $1,161.00 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices fell to a low of $1,155.80 an ounce ahead of the report but pulled higher after the Labor Department said the U.S. economy added 223,000 jobs in June, which was less than economists’ forecasts of a 233,000 gain. The unemployment rate, collected by a separate survey, fell to 5.3% in June from 5.5% in May. Economists expected the unemployment rate to fall to 5.4%. Gold traders closely follow the report, as employment is one of the main data points considered by Fed officials in making monetary policy decisions. While many investors expect the central bank to raise rates in the second half of the year, the pace of the increases is likely to be slow given economic problems in Europe and the robust gains in the U.S. dollar. The slightly weaker report weighed on the dollar and gave gold futures a respite, but the data was close enough to expectations to keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates later this year, said Bob Haberkorn, a senior commodities broker with RJO Futures in Chicago. “This number isn’t going to change the outlook for the Fed,� Mr. Haberkorn said. Investors have been cutting back on gold holdings in recent years on the expectation of a tighter monetary policy stance by the U.S. central bank. Business activity continues to gather momentum, and the economy no longer requires the emergency measures undertaken by the Federal Reserve during the 2008 financial crisis.

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