Gold prices rise on US jobs report

The price of gold added $8.60 to settle at $1,670.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange Friday. Gold prices rose higher after the U.S. jobs report was released and then fell back after other economic data, mostly better than expected, came out. "Gold popped higher on the surprisingly bad unemployment number, but the internals of the report and other data quickly muted the gains," Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter, told MarketWatch.com. "Gold is being held hostage to the data flow right now, with bad news for the economy being good for gold, as slow or negative growth will portend continued or more aggressive quantitative easing by the Fed." The Labor Department said the U.S. economy added 157,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in December. Silver rose 61 cents to close the session at $31.96 an ounce. Against the dollar, the euro was $1.3663 Friday from $1.3586 Thursday in late afternoon trading. The dollar was 92.75 yen Friday from 91.76 yen Thursday.