Gold rose almost 1 percent in thin holiday trade on Monday, breaking ranks with other commodities and equities, after disappointing US jobs data last week revived speculation that the Federal Reserve might try to stimulate the US economy. The precious metal, which fell more than 2 percent last week, also received a boost from physical buying out of India following the end of a jewelers strike.
Bullion has dropped 8 percent since the end of February after a run of strong US economic data convinced many fund managers that the Fed would not launch another round of stimulus. Spot gold was up 0.9 percent at $1,645.40 an ounce by 2:41 pm EST (1841 GMT). US gold futures for June delivery settled up $13.80 an ounce, or 0.85 percent, at $1,643.90. Trading volume was light, around 40 percent of the 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed, with most European financial markets still closed for Easter. Silver was down 0.3 percent at $31.62 an ounce. Among other precious metals, spot platinum rose 1.1 percent to $1,608.15 an ounce and spot palladium edged up 0.1 percent to $639.03 an ounce.