Gold continues to rise ahead of US jobs report

Gold prices rose during the European session today, to continue its surge for the fourth straight day near 2-week high, as dollar fell against a basket of currencies, ahead of the US monthly jobs report.

Gold was higher by 0.2% and reached $1,508.50 an ounce as of 8:35 GMT, after opening at $1,502.20, with a high of $1,510.04, and a low of $1,504.78.

Gold also closed higher by 0.4% yesterday, its third daily gain, as it rose to 1-week high of $1,519.46 after the release of weak data on the US service sector.

The dollar index fell by 0.1% today, to continue its drop for the fourth consecutive day, which come in favor of gold and other dollar-denominated metals.

The market expectations of the Fed to cut the interest rates for the third time this year have jumped yesterday to 100%, due to the continued weak US data which increased fears about a near US recession.

During this week, the monthly reading of the US ISM manufacturing PMI for September, showed that the index slowed by the weakest pace in more than a decade, in addition to the service PMI for the same month declining by slowest pace in 3 years.

While in order to reassess these expectations, investors are anticipating the release of important data on the US labor market, especially the new non-farm jobs change reading for September, in addition to Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech.

At 12:30 GMT, the US non-farm jobs change will be released, with forecasts of the creation of 145,000 new jobs in September vs. 130,000 in August, while the average hourly earnings are expected to slow to 0.3% vs. 0.4%.

By 18:00 GMT, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will deliver a speech at a Fed Listens event hosted by the Federal Reserve, in Washington.

Gold holdings at the SPDR Gold Trust, remained unchanged yesterday yesterday, with a total of 923.76 tons.