Gold Prices Off Session Highs After Jobs Data (GLD, GDX, SIL, SIVR, ABX, GG, AUY, PAAS, HL, JJC, FCX, RIO, SCCO)

Published on Friday, 02 December 2011 11:54 Written by Paul Oldrini

New York, December 2^nd (TradersHuddle.com) – Gold prices came off session highs after the U.S. Labor Department said the economy in November added 120,000 jobs, missing economists’ estimates of 125,000. But the unemployment rate came down to 8.6% from 9%.

Gold prices for February delivery, added $12.40 or 0.71%, to $1,752.30 an ounce after hitting session high of $1,767.10 earlier. Silver prices also added over 1% to $33.09 an ounce.

In the metals space, copper also rose over 2% and was on track to post its first weekly gain in the past five weeks. Copper had rallied strongly on Wednesday after global central banks were agreed to provide more dollars at lower cost in an attempt to boost liquidity, but worries remained about the debt crisis affecting the euro zone.                  Copper prices also received a jump after Freeport McMoRan Indonesia unit declared force majeure on its products, due to the ongoing strike in the world’s second largest copper mine, located in that country. Copper has jumped over 10% this week.

Now, investors would continue to focus on a European Union summit on Dec 9, if European leaders are able to agree on credible action to tackle the debt crisis.

In other metals, Palladium surged $20 or 3.18% to $655, while Platinum fell $5 or 0.32% to $1563.

SPDR Gold Trust (ETF)  (NYSE:GLD) added 0.21%% to $169.99.  Market Vectors Etf Trust  (NYSE:GDX) slid 0.78% to $59.83, iShares Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSE:IAU) gained 0.18% to $17.05. Global X Silver Miners  (NYSE:SIL) surged 1.37% and ETFS Silver Trust  (NYSE:SIVR) rose 1.45%.

Barrick Gold Corporation (USA)  (NYSE:ABX) corrected 0.98%, Goldcorp Inc. (USA)(NYSE:GG) slumped .20% and Yamana Gold Inc. (USA)(NYSE:AUY) fell 0.36%. Kinross Gold Corporation (USA)(NYSE:KGC) fell 0.80%.

Pan American Silver Corp. (USA)  (NASDAQ:PAAS) fell 0.35%. Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:SSRI) gained 1.37% to $33.52. Hecla Mining (NYSE:HL) declined 0.32%.

Global X Copper Miners ETF  (NYSE:COPX) is trading higher by 0.85%. iPath Dow Jones-UBS Copper Subindex Total Return ETN  (NYSE:JJC) gained 1.19%.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.  (NYSE:FCX) climbed 2.21% to $40.15, Southern Copper Corporation (USA)  (NYSE:SCCO) is trading with a gain of 0.19%. Rio Tinto plc (ADR) (NYSE:RIO) gained about 1% after saying it will invest $2.7 billion to modernize its Aluminum smelter in British Colombia, Canada.