Recent labor market data, particularly the NFP report, has pushed many investors to reposition toward gold.

—> Two major figures were in focus this Friday.

• July’s NFP came in at -23,000 jobs, against a consensus estimate of +85,000.

• The May and June revisions showed a combined -103,000, confirming a sharper slowdown than anticipated.

Despite this, the unemployment rate fell 0.1 point to 4.1%.

A misleading figure, as this decline is explained by a labor force participation rate still trending downward, not by an actual hiring dynamic.

It reflects, on the contrary, growing pessimism among households regarding the labor market.

Faced with this evidence of a cracking labor market, gold clearly benefited from this macroeconomic reading, closing Friday’s session up 2.4%.

On Binance, the trend was just as pronounced, particularly on futures, which recorded one of their strongest trading days of the past four months, with over $2.5B in volume on Friday alone, one of the most active sessions since XAU was introduced on the platform.

To put these numbers into perspective, since their launch on Binance barely 9 months ago, gold futures have already accumulated over $200B in volume, a staggering rise that reflects crypto investors’ growing appetite for safe-haven assets.

This renewed interest in gold, combined with weakening employment data, confirms that the market appears to be pricing in a possible deterioration of the economic situation.

Written by Darkfost