By MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Gold prices struggled to hold above the $1,600-per-ounce level in east Asia on Friday, as investors awaited further clues to the economic outlook, including key U.S. employment data due later Friday.
Comex gold for August GCQ2 -1.01% was down $5.60, or 0.4%, at $1,603.80 per ounce. In the regular U.S. session Thursday, the contract retreated $12.40, or 0.8%, to settle at $1,609.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
U.S. nonfarm-payrolls data on tap for later in the global trading day is projected to show an increase of 100,000 jobs in June. Read U.S. jobs preview.
Analysts said policy easing by central banks, unveiled Thursday, including a surprise cut to lending and deposit rates announced by the People’s Bank of China, appeared to raise the very doubts they were designed to dispel.
Credit Suisse’s analyst Dong Tao in Hong Kong saw the PBOC’s move as a negative indicator of the scale of the ongoing slowdown in mainland China.
“We do not think the monetary easing is effective to rescue the economy,” Tao said in note Friday. “In our view, China is in a liquidity trap.”
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the precious metals, September silver SIU2 -1.00% was down 7 U.S. cents, or 0.3%, at $27.60 an ounce.
