The gold price remains under pressure today following on from last Friday’s losses after the release of solid employment numbers from the US

The latest non-farm payrolls figure hit the market at 209,000, well above analysts’ expectations for a number of 183,000 while the unemployment rate fell from 4.4 percent to 4.3 percent.

This is now the 2^nd month in a row that employment numbers have beat expectations with the US currently sitting near full employment,

The news left investors piling into the US dollar at the expense of gold, which was heavily sold off

"The job data was very good; gold is pressured. There is not much other geopolitical uncertainty in the world, no extreme events. That's why risk-aversion is subsiding and gold prices aren't doing well." Noted Richard Xu, a fund manager at China's biggest gold exchange-traded fund, HuaAn Gold.
 

The market is now pricing in around a 50 percent chance that the Fed will once again raise interest rates this year and the percentage is set to rise if this week’s inflation figures due for release out of the US also hit the market above expectations.

"The strong rise in non-farm payrolls together with the drop back in the unemployment rate to a joint 16-year low suggests the Fed will still need to raise rates again later this year, even if inflation remains subdued," said Simona Gambarini, commodities economist at Capital Economics.