Ouch!

Gold prices today gave up nearly all the gains they had spent this week building up. On Monday ... gold closed at $1,734 ... and things were going gang-busters all this week and into this morning. In fact ... before 8:30 this morning ... gold on the Comex had climbed to $1,765. It looked like it was going to another positive week for the yellow metal. But by the time floor trading ended today ... gold had pretty much given back all the ground it had gained this week.

Here's what happened. The Labor Department ... at 8:30 am ... reported that in January 243,000 jobs were created. Most economists were expecting only 150,000 jobs to be created ... so it was a real surprise. The government also reported that the nation's unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent from 8.5 percent ... something else the market was not expecting.

Once those jobs and unemployment numbers were out ... investors decided that the U.S. economy is really and truly on a recovery that can last ... and so they jumped into stocks ... and jumped out of gold.

The fundamentals that have lifted gold 12 percent so far this year remain in place so next week should be positive.  But we may have to wait until NEXT Friday to find out.