Gold set for first weekly gain in a month as investors scale back bets on a September Fed rate hike

Gold prices were set for their first weekly rise in roughly a month as traders reduced expectations that the Federal Reserve would deliver another interest-rate increase in September. Spot gold rose during Friday morning trading and was on course for a weekly gain, according to market pricing cited by CNBC.

By 4:30 a.m. ET on Friday, spot gold was trading around $4,182.28 per ounce, up about 1.4% on the day and positioned for a gain of roughly 2.3% for the week. Front-month U.S. gold futures were up about 1.5% intraday, the report said.

The shift followed U.S. economic data that tempered inflation concerns and altered rate-hike expectations. CNBC reported that U.S. nonfarm payrolls released Thursday showed the American economy added 57,000 jobs in June, after a downward revision to 129,000 added in May and below the 115,000 forecast cited by the Dow Jones consensus. The market reaction, per CNBC, was a re-evaluation of the likelihood and timing of additional Fed tightening.

Ahead of the jobs report, investors had been assigning a higher probability to a September increase. CNBC said that before Thursday’s payroll release, markets were pricing in a September rate hike probability of about 65%. After the data, the odds fell to about 53.5%, based on the CME’s FedWatch tool, with rates held steady in July.

The report also tied gold’s broader 2026 performance to currency and central-bank expectations. It said a firmer U.S. dollar and a “hawkish turn” among central banks have weighed on gold prices this year, and that bullion has been under sustained pressure despite periodic rebounds. CNBC noted that gold posted its worst quarter in 13 years in the three months through June, and remains at a discount of about 22% from an all-time high above $5,300 reached in January.

Other precious metals also firmed alongside gold. CNBC reported that spot silver jumped about 2.9% to around $62.77, reflecting the same shift toward less restrictive rate expectations. With the week still in progress at the time of publication, prices were described as on track for a first weekly gain in five weeks for gold.

Investors are expected to continue monitoring forthcoming U.S. data for signs of whether the labor market cooling will persist, given the sensitivity of gold to interest-rate expectations and the U.S. dollar. The next steps for markets, according to CNBC’s framing, are largely centered on how traders update probabilities around additional Fed policy moves after the revised payrolls and their implications for inflation and growth.