The price of gold on Friday (23/7) is expected to continue to consolidate in the range of US$1,790-1,820 dollars per troy ounce.

Commodity analyst Ariston Tjendra said spot gold prices rebounded on the back of US weekly jobless claims data released last night, which came out worse than market expectations.

"The data on jobless claims is higher than last week. This indicates that the condition of the US workforce has not stabilized to improve. This result encourages the weakening of the US dollar and boosts gold prices," he said in Jakarta.

Furthermore, the increase in gold prices was also supported by declining market sentiment towards risk, as seen in the rise in US and European stock indices, which were much smaller than the previous day's gains.

As for tonight, the US manufacturing and service sector PMI data for June will be released. A positive result could add pressure to gold prices.