Gold slides to four-week low on jobs data Gold slid to a four-week low on Thursday as investors digested the latest US jobs data and reassessed the likelihood of a military strike on Syria. The precious metal fell to $1,329 a troy ounce in afternoon trading in London after a report showed jobless claims last week fell to the lowest level since April 2006, extending losses since the start of the week to 5 per cent. The data fuelled speculation that the US Federal Reserve's open market committee will announce a tapering of its bond-buying programme when it meets next week. Ultra-loose monetary policy has supported gold as a hedge against inflation. Further downside pressure came from the political sphere. The US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to meet his Russian counterpart for two days of talks on Thursday on Syria, a move that is seen as reducing the likelihood of an imminent strike. Early in the week, Russia's proposal for Syria to give up its chemical weapons as a way to avoid an attack led to a pause in President Barack Obama's efforts to win over the US Congress. The gold price weakness has mainly been technical in nature with the triggering of stops exacerbating the slide. Fears over Syria have subsided, removing that portion of support for prices, though the focus is still on the FOMC meeting next week," said Leon Westgate, commodities strategist at Standard Bank. Gold hit a three-month high at the end of August, helped both by political uncertainty and strong demand from China and India. However, the rally from June's 21-month low of $1,200 has clearly turned. "We blame the price slide of recent days on the abating geopolitical tensions in Syria on the one hand, and on next week's upcoming meeting of the US Federal Reserve on the other," said analysts at Commerzbank. Evidently, a growing number of market players anticipate that an initial reduction in bond purchases will already be announced by the Fed next week. In an update to its 2013 Gold Survey, Thomson Reuters GFMS said it expected the boost to physical demand from the Middle East and Asia to abate in the rest of the year. The report said "such heightened volumes will prove hard to sustain," especially in India because of the falling rupee and government actions to limit gold imports. However, the gold consultant expected geopolitical tensions and loose monetary policy to support a price testing $1,480 a troy ounce in the fourth quarter. But Standard Bank remained cautious. Tactically one has to question the sustainability of a move in the gold price much higher without strong physical demand especially with our view that the US 10-year bond yield will move towards 4 per cent over the next 12 months.