Investing.com — Gold hit a one-month high Friday in a sign that it may be ready to break free of the mid-$1,800 range it has been trapped in the past four weeks after benign U.S. jobs growth for February signaled a smaller rate hike than initially thought.

The United States added 311,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department said Friday, reporting a number that again beat forecasts but not as much as in January, in what could be a relief to the Federal Reserve’s task of lowering inflation amid persistently strong labor and wage growth.

For the week, April gold rose 0.7%.