Market participants are focusing on tomorrow’s latest data on inflation, which will be followed by the PPI (Producer Price Index) report on Friday.

As of 4:43 PM ET gold futures basis the most active February contract is trading higher by $2.50 or 0.12% and fixed at $2036. Concurrently the dollar is also up fractionally, yielding gains today of 0.21% taking the dollar index to 102.521.

This morning the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the nonfarm payroll employment report for December at 8:30 AM ET. There was an immediate and strong knee-jerk reaction to this report’s release.