Gold continued its steady rise above the $2,850 level for four consecutive trading days as the narrative of trade war tensions escalated and prompted investors to shift to safe assets.
At 9.30 am, the price of gold was at $2,868.94, up 0.22% since it opened at the beginning of Monday’s Asian session.
Last Friday, Donald Trump planned to announce tariffs on most countries that would retaliate in the middle of the week and take effect immediately.
This sentiment provided support to the gold market as investors examined developments surrounding the threat of a trade war.
In addition, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) added gold to its reserves in January for the third month, supporting its price at its peak as China is the world’s largest consumer of gold.
Looking at economic data, the Labor Department last weekend saw the jobs market remain strong, which prevented the Federal Reserve (Fed) from cutting its interest rates.
The addition of 143,000 jobs in January compared to the 170,000 increase expected by economists.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate moved down to 4.0% compared to expectations for it to remain unchanged the previous month at 4.1%.
Market participants now expect the US central bank to cut rates just once more this year, which has the potential to boost the dollar and influence other commodity prices.
