PRECIOUS-Gold heads for biggest daily gain since 2008 as investors step in after steep selloff

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Gold jumps over 5%, silver up over 9%

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Gold, silver fell to one-month lows on Monday

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No US employment report on Friday due to partial government shutdown

(Rewrites for EMEA morning session)

By Noel John

Feb 3 (Reuters) - Gold and silver prices rose sharply on Tuesday, with gold set ?for its biggest daily rise since November 2008, as investors snapped up the metals following their steepest two-day ?slump in decades.

Spot gold climbed 5.5% to $4,921.42 an ounce by 0944 GMT. ?It is bouncing back from a low of $4,403.24 on ?Monday, while the $5,594.82 per ?ounce mark touched last week remains a historic peak for now.

U.S. gold futures for April delivery ?rose 6.3% to $4,945.60 per ounce.

Silver surged 9.2% ?to $86.7 an ounce on Tuesday, after posting a record 27% one-day drop on Friday and falling a further 6% on Monday.

"The ?market was oversold after the announcement ?of U.S. President ?Donald Trump to nominate Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chairman. What we see today is a rebound," said Quantitative Commodity Research analyst ?Peter Fertig.

"You also see investors who have sold on profit taking are now regarding the prices as attractive again for buying."

While investors expect Warsh to favour rate cuts, they anticipate he will tighten the Fed's balance sheet, a move typically supportive of the dollar.

Meanwhile, CME Group (CME) also raised margin ?requirements on precious ?metal futures, further weighing on prices.

However, analysts see the yellow metal's bull run continuing and expect it to notch fresh record highs ?later this year.

"Gold has now cleared its first retracement hurdle at $4,858, shifting focus toward $5,000 - the 50% retracement of the latest slump. For silver, the equivalent levels sit higher at $90.58 and $96.52," said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Monday the closely-watched employment report for January would not be ?released this Friday due to a partial shutdown of the federal government.

In other metals, spot platinum climbed 5.3% to $2,233.95 per ounce after hitting a record high of $2,918.80 on January 26, while ?palladium was up 4.2% at $1,792.35. (Reporting by Noel John in Bengaluru; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar)