gold declined after briefly tapping a fourmonth high on monday as worries about recent data showing strongerthanexpected us business conditions and wage growth boosted the dollar and treasury yields along with expectations for more aggressive ratehikes by the federal reserve the fact that gold turned lower from a key level makes mondays reversal eyecatching as the chart suggests that at least a temporary top may be in for now said fawad razaqzada market analyst at city index and forexcom gold futures settled above 1800 on thursday for the first time since midaugust data from the institute for supply management released monday showed that a barometer of us business conditions at servicesector companies rose to 565 in november economists polled by the wall street journal had expected a drop to 537 following that data the ice us dollar index was up 06 at 10520 and the 10year treasury yield climbed more than 8 points to 3595 pressuring prices for gold mondays ism data followed the november report on nonfarm payrolls which revealed the creation of 263000 new jobs and a rise in hourly pay of 06 separately us factory orders rose by a more than expected 1 in october with us data continuing to remain largely positive some investors are starting to requestion the market pricing of the terminal interest rates in the us currently priced in at just below 5 said razaqzada in a market update if incoming data continues to remain favourable then inflation is likely to persist longer and that may encourage the fed to be even more reluctant to pause its hiking early in the first half of 2023 over the past month gold prices have steadily climbed higher with the price of the mostactive contract topping its 200day moving average last week for the first time since june but fridays us jobs data was a big setback for the yellow metal said craig erlam senior market analyst at oanda the hotterthanexpected november jobs print combined with hot wagegrowth numbers reinforced the notion that the federal reserve still has a long way to go in its quest to suppress inflation he said