Gold retreats toward $4,300 as traders weigh Fed rate-hike path

Gold’s rally has hit the brakes. After briefly touching $4,500 in intraday trading and posting a two-month high of $4,449, spot gold has retreated back toward $4,300 as traders recalibrate their expectations for what the Federal Reserve does next with interest rates. The metal closed around $4,350 by mid-August, settling into a range that reflects a market caught between two competing narratives: soft economic data that argues against further tightening, and a Fed that hasn’t officially taken rate hikes off the table. The rate-hike calculus driving gold’s volatility The July US jobs report came in weaker than expected, and gold responded by moving higher. Weaker employment figures translate to lower odds of additional rate hikes, which makes non-yielding assets like gold more attractive by comparison. But the rally didn’t stick. Profit-taking kicked in, and a flat Producer Price Index for July gave traders reason to pare back their positions. The PPI reading was neither hot enough to cement rate-hike fears nor cool enough to fully dismiss them, leaving gold in a kind of purgatory between $4,300 and $4,500. The market-implied probability of a September rate hike currently sits at ro...