- Gold extends rally to eight straight session
- Gold set for best week in 5 months
- Eyes on U.S. jobs data due at 1330 GMT
March 8 (Reuters) - Gold prices hit record highs for a fourth consecutive session on Friday on growing speculations over June interest rate cuts ahead of key U.S. jobs data due later in the day.
Spot gold rose 0.3% to $2,165.1 per ounce as of 1300 GMT, while U.S. gold futures added 0.3% to $2,172.40.
Gold reached a new all-time high of $2,170.99 earlier in the session and has gained more than 4.1% so far this week, setting it on track to post its biggest weekly percentage increase since mid-October.
"I think a lot of the demand that we've seen coming from is really in the paper market. It's just speculative demand," said Michael Widmer, Bank of America's head of Metals Research.
"You always had good support from Chinese buying and central bank buying. But that was never enough to take prices high."
Gold first surpassed its December peak on Tuesday, primarily aided by growing indications of cooling price pressures and bullion's traditional safe-haven cachet.
The focus today is on the critical U.S. non-farm payroll data set to release at 1330 GMT, which will guide market direction in the near term.
Low interest rates are gold supportive as they reduce the opportunity cost of holding bullion.
The surge in gold prices could dampen consumption during the wedding season in India, but top buyer China will see robust safe-haven demand this year, analysts and traders said.
"In sharp contrast to what has been expectative inflow in the futures and OTC markets, we have very little speculative flow into ETFs, that tends to be, I think, more of a slightly longer term play in the gold market," said Philip Newman, managing director of Metals Focus.
Spot silver rose 0.7% to $24.49, while platinum fell 0.5% to $914.15 per ounce, and palladium gained 0.3% to $1,036.45. All were set for weekly gains.
Reporting by Sherin Elizabeth Varghese, Harshit Verma and Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Shailesh Kuber
Source: Reuters