With 30 minutes to Friday’s close, benchmark US gold futures for delivery in December was at $2,474.20 per ounce, down $6.60, or 0.3%, on the day.
For the week, December gold rose 4.2% - its most since a 4.8% rally during the week ended March 31. Equally significant was gold futures’ rally to a record high of $2,522 this week.
The spot price of gold, which reflects real-time trades in bullion, hovered at just over $2,430 an ounce, down almost $15, or 0.6%, for Friday.
For the week, spot gold rose 2.1%, its most since the week ended June 30, when it rose 2.8%. It also hit an all-time high above $2,477 this week.
The US Labor Department reported on Friday that non-farm payrolls grew by 114,000 jobs in July, the smallest growth since the jobs boom that began after the pandemic. Unemployment, meanwhile, rose to 4.3%, the highest since December 2021.
The cooler-than-anticipated US labor situation prompted money market bets for a 50-basis point, or 0.5% percentage point, rate cut when the Fed’s policy-makers meet on September 18. Prior to that, bets had been at best been for a 25 basis point, or 0.25% percentage point, cut.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself said this week that the central bank’s policy-making Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was closing in on its first rate cut in 4-½ years and that it could come as early as September.
"On the whole, there is little in this [July jobs] report that is likely to dissuade the FOMC from delivering this cycle's first 25 bp cut at the next meeting in September," Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said.
Prospects of an impending Fed rate reduction also sent the dollar and US bonds lower and gold higher.