Gold suffered losses for the second week in a row

Despite gains in precious metal prices in trading on Friday after the US jobs report for November indicated continued gradual improvement in the labor market, paving the way for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates again.

a rose gold In spot trading, the commodity was up 0.2 percent at $2,636 an ounce by 1841 GMT, while U.S. gold futures were up 0.4 percent at $2,659.60 an ounce.

And it fell Dollar And U.S. Treasury bond yields after the labor market report showed nonfarm payrolls increased by about 227,000 jobs last month after gaining about 36,000 jobs in October. Economists polled by Reuters had expected the number of jobs to accelerate by about 200,000 jobs.

As for the unemployment rate, it rose to 4.2 percent in November, compared to 4.1 percent in the previous two months, which was against expectations that it would remain unchanged.

The prospect of lower interest rates, starting with a half-basis point cut in September, has supported gold’s record rally this year, as low interest rates increase the appeal of holding gold without yield.

Traders now see an 87 percent chance of a 25-basis-point rate cut at the Fed’s December meeting, compared with 72 percent before the jobs data is released, according to FedWatch.

Among other precious metals, silver fell 1.1 percent in spot trade to $31 an ounce, but posted weekly gains. Platinum fell 1.3 percent to $925.78 and palladium 0.5 percent to $957.83, with both metals suffering losses for a second week in a row, according to Reuters data.