Gold futures were up on Monday morning, with US employment data still weighing on safe havens and as inflation data becomes the new focus for the present week.
On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold futures were trading 0.10 percent higher at $1,263.30 a troy ounce as of 07:30 GMT.
On Friday, the yellow metal dropped sharply on the back of better than expected US employment report for July, which reawakened speculations for a third rate hike later this year.
According to Fed funds tracked by CME Group’s FedWatch tool, market players are currently pricing in a 42.5 percent probability of a third rate hike by December.
Gold futures settled at $1,258.28 on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, easing 0.8 percent for the week and marking its first weekly decline in four weeks.
The US Labor Department said the economy added 209,000 jobs in the previous month, above an initially forecasted 183,000. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3 percent.
The closely watched average hourly earnings rose by 0.3 percent in July to $26.36 per hour, which is the biggest monthly advance in the last ten months.
Wage growth is a key metric for the Federal Reserve, as it could be interpreted as more money on American pockets and therefore, more consumption.
Investors were cheered by the employment report and the optimism was also felt on the dollar index, which moved away from a fifteen month low by the end of the week.
The US dollar index, which gauges the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, traded at 92.59, easing 0.13 percent by the time of this writing.
In the days to come, traders will be paying attention to a serious of Federal Open Market Committee speakers and a fresh inflation report in the US due on Friday.
