The price of gold in the United Kingdom climbed above £3,086 an ounce in early trading on Monday, as the metal recovered from its late-October slide and sterling buyers returned after the weekend.

Live spot gold in the UK reached £3,086.44 per troy ounce by 02:31 GMT on Monday 9 November, up £52.33, or 1.72 percent, from the previous session's close of £3,034.11. In US dollar terms the same ounce was worth $4,125.60. Pure 24-karat gold rose £1.68 a gram to £99.23, while 22-karat gold, the standard for much of the jewellery sold in Britain, was priced at £90.90 a gram, 21-karat at £86.83 and 18-karat at £74.42.

The move extends a recovery that has been building for a week. Gold in sterling terms is now up 5.24 percent over the past seven days, although it remains 4.10 percent lower than a month ago and only 0.16 percent higher than a year ago. The metal has traded in a 30-day corridor between £2,893.16 and £3,173.11 an ounce, against a 52-week average of £3,316.78, so Monday's level sits well below the highs seen earlier in the year even after the latest rise.

The international picture matches the UK move. Spot gold edged higher in early Asian trading on Monday, with Reuters reporting it up 0.2 percent at $4,073.59 an ounce. Softer oil prices eased concerns about inflation, giving gold room to rise, although gains were capped by expectations that the US Federal Reserve will keep interest rates higher for longer after a strong American jobs report.

The United States added 165,000 jobs in October, well above the roughly 65,000 economists had expected, and traders now put the odds of a Federal Reserve rate rise in December at roughly 77 to 80 percent. Higher US rates usually weigh on gold, which pays no interest, but the metal has held its ground so far on Monday as the fall in oil prices took some of the heat out of the inflation outlook.

For British buyers the sterling price matters as much as the dollar price, because local gold is priced from two moving parts: the international spot price and the pound's exchange rate against the dollar. The pound stood at 1 US dollar to 0.7481 pounds on Monday morning, so a weaker pound pushes the local gold price up even when the global price is flat. A one percent move in the currency shifts the price of an ounce by about £30.86 at current levels.

The retail picture shows the same firming. A one-tola bar of 24-karat gold, weighing 11.66 grams, was valued at £1,157.42, an eight-gram Gold Pound at £694.62, and a one-kilogram investment bar at £99,231.47. Those are spot-equivalent values before dealer premiums and making charges, which typically add between one and three percent for investment bars and more for jewellery.

Silver, often traded alongside gold, was quoted at £39.86 an ounce in the UK on Monday, leaving the gold-to-silver ratio at about 77.4 ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. Whether gold can hold above £3,000 this week is likely to turn on Tuesday's US inflation figures and the Federal Reserve's next signals, with traders watching for any sign that the December rate rise now priced into markets might be delayed.