The first quarter saw gold gain by nearly 6%. Market participants will be focusing on no fewer than two important events today, EU inflation figures and US labour market data. The first could lift the price of gold in euros while the second is unlikely to impact XAU/USD, economists at Commerzbank report.

Hot EU inflation data to lift gold in euros

“The Eurozone inflation rate for March will be published. The Bloomberg consensus of +6.7% is likely to prove considerably too low. Our economists anticipate a rise of 7.7%. This will further increase the pressure on the ECB to take steps to ensure price stability. Gold in euros could therefore rise in response to the data.”

“The Bloomberg consensus expects an increase of nearly 500K jobs, which would mean that the US labour market is continuing to run hot. The Fed is likely to see this as confirmation of the need to raise interest rates to a greater extent at its upcoming meetings. Since the market’s rate hike expectations have already picked up in recent weeks, however, we do not expect the labour market data to have any major impact on the gold price.”

See – NFP Preview: Forecasts from 10 major banks, another large gain for employment anticipated