Gold eyes best week in six months on lower dollar, Treasury yields

FILE PHOTO: Gold bars and coins are stacked in the safe deposit boxes room of the Pro Aurum gold house in Munich

By Sethuraman N R

(Reuters) - Gold prices rose on Friday after breaching the key $1,800 level in the previous session, boosted by a weaker dollar and lower Treasury yields, while investors awaited U.S. non-farm payrolls data due later in the day.

Spot gold was up 0.3% at $1,819 per ounce by 0959 GMT, after hitting its highest since Feb. 16 earlier in the session. Bullion has gained nearly 3% so far this week, its best week since early Nov. 2020.

U.S. gold futures rose 0.3% to $1,820.70.

"The technical picture has brightened after gold finally broke above $1,800. This could lead to follow-up buying by speculative, technical investors and could also lead to more conviction amongst ETF investors," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch said.

The dollar index slipped to a one-week low, while benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yields hovered close to a two-week low.

Market participants await U.S. monthly jobs report due at 08:30 a.m. EST. Economists expect 978,000 new U.S. jobs in April, according to a Reuters poll.

Data on Thursday showed weekly U.S. jobless claims dropped to a 13-month low.

"The Fed has made pretty clear that it will not react even after strong U.S. data and the monetary policy stands for the time being. So, even a strong U.S. payroll would not have a meaningful negative impact on gold. But, a weaker one would be bullish for gold," Fritsch said.

Spot gold may test a resistance at $1,830 per ounce, a break above which could lead to a gain to $1,847, according to Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.

Elsewhere, palladium fell 0.5% to $2,931 per ounce, after hitting an all-time high of $3,017.18 earlier this week.

Silver eased 0.1% to $27.27 per ounce, though the metal has climbed more than 5% this week. Platinum slipped 0.4% to $1,247.

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)