New York/ London: Gold fell one per cent on Friday, its biggest one-day loss in over a month, after encouraging US payrolls data smashed hopes of extra stimulus from the Federal Reserve, which had been priced into bullion's recent rally.
Wall Street and industrial commodities plus US Treasury yields, an indicator of short-term interest rates, all rose on news the US economy created jobs in January at the fastest pace in nine months.
After four consecutive weekly gains, bullion posted a small weekly loss as Friday's sell-off wiped out profits from earlier this week. It is still up 11 per cent year to date.
Analysts had warned of a pullback after bullion rallied on hopes of immediate Fed actions to boost growth. The Fed said last week it would likely keep rates low until at least late 2014 and it was ready to offer the economy additional stimulus.
"The jobs report has taken the market's anticipation of additional quantitative easing off the table," said Frank McGhee, head precious metals trader of Integrated Brokerage Services LLC.
Spot gold was down 1.1 per cent at $1,739.19 an ounce, after having earlier peaked at $1,762.90.
US gold futures for April delivery settled down $19 an ounce at $1,740.30, with trading volume in line with its 30-day average.
