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• Gold futures logged an 11th day of gains on Friday—the longest stretch of consecutive session gains on record.

• February gold GCG8, -0.09% rose 70 cents, or less than 0.1%, to settle at $1,322.30 an ounce. Futures prices again logged their highest settlement since Sept. 15.

• Prices have now climbed for 11 sessions in a row. That’s the longest such streak for a most-active futures contract based on data from FactSet going back to late 1984.

• For the week, gold rose roughly 1% climb after three weeks of gains.

• The precious metal started the day on shaky ground with some caution emerging among investors after the metal hit 10-straight sessions of gains on Thursday, which was its longest run in more than six years. The dollar, which usually moves inversely to gold, was initially higher, was pushed lower by the employment report, then bounced back.

• The jobs report Friday revealed that the U.S. added 148,000 workers in December, the slowest pace in three months, and it included a tepid wage-growth reading, which could gold some gold investors interpreted as possibly slowing interest-rate increases for the Federal Reserve in 2018. The unemployed rate, however, held at 4.1%.

• Separate data Friday showed the Institute for Supply Management’s nonmanufacturing index sank 1.5 points to 55.9% in December. A reading of 50 or better indicates improving activity.

• China gold reserves were at 59.240 million fine troy ounces at end-Dec, unchanged vs end-Nov, the central bank said on Sunday.

• “Spot gold prices in U.S. dollars are being influenced by overall weakness in the U.S. dollar across the currency spectrum: in other fiat currencies, gold and cryptocurrencies,” said Anthem Blanchard, chief executive officer of Anthem Gold.

He expects gold prices to maintain their “momentum through the end of January as investors ignore Fed talk about the potential of inflation concerns leading to material Fed interest-rate increases in 2018.”

• “We do not see anything in the current report that will dissuade the consensus view that a hike is forthcoming in March,” said Marvin Loh, senior global market strategist, at BNY Mellon in Boston.

He added that while the report was disappointing given the significant headline miss, it was mostly consistent with the late stages of the U.S. economy’s current expansion.

• Among other metals, palladium pulled back after hitting record levels Thursday. March palladium PAH8, +0.55% eased $12.55, or 1.2%, to $1,082.20 an ounce, with prices scoring a 2% weekly rise. They settled a day earlier at $1,094.75—the highest for a most-active futures contract on records dating back to 1984, according to FactSet data.

• March copper HGH8, +0.06% fell 1% to $3.23 a pound, ending down 2.2% for the week, March silver SIH8, -0.09% rose 0.1% to $17.285 an ounce, up about 0.8% from a week ago, and April platinum PLJ8, -0.05% rose 0.5% to $975.20 an ounce—for a weekly climb of about 4%.

Reference: Market Watch