Friday's economic data releases reinforced market expectations for monetary policy easing while precious metals continued their divergent trajectories, with silver challenging record highs even as gold retreated from recent gains.

Market participants continue to parse through conflicting employment data from November, as divergent signals from multiple labor market indicators have created uncertainty heading into next week's Federal Reserve policy meeting.

Both gold and silver opened December with a bang as silver surged to a new nominal all-time high above $58 per ounce, while gold recovered from profit-taking to consolidate near $4,232 positioning both metals for potential further gains ahead of next week's