Gold price steady as US markets await further economic data

The value of gold was down slightly this morning (Monday August 1) after hitting its highest level in almost three weeks before the weekend.

Gold was buoyed up at the end of last week by poor economic figures from the US. Data showed that the US economy grew by just 1.2 per cent in the second quarter of the year, a much slower pace than analysts had been expecting.

Gold ended last week at £1,023.25 per troy ounce at 20:45 on Friday (July 29) and this morning, it stood at £1,017.94 at 06:45. The fluctuations show that the gold price is worth watching closely if you are looking to invest to determine the best points to buy and sell as there will be ups and downs. Although it's worth noting that the trajectory for the year as a whole has been on the up.

Jiang Shu, chief analyst at Shandong Gold Group, told Reuters that investors are likely to waiting for further official economic figures due to be published in the US at the end of the week.

He said: "The (gold) markets will be more prudent ahead of the non-farm payrolls data due on Friday.

"If it is going to be weak, then people will change their expectations about the US economic prospects drastically. If they are relatively good, bad GDP data could be counterbalanced by a good jobs data."

Expectations for the US economy – and therefore whether more investors will head to gold as a safe haven for their money – were mixed at the start of the week. Much of that is due to the different signals coming from the US Federal Reserve policymakers about whether interest rates will rise again before the end of the year.

Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan was cautious about further hikes in the cost of borrowing but his San Francisco counterpart John Williams has indicated that he expects two rises before 2017.