Gold Advances Amid Lingering Rate Cut Expectations, AI Bubble Concerns

(RTTNews) - Gold prices edged higher on Friday as traders resumed their bets on another interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve as they analyzed yesterday's mixed numbers from the U.S. non-farm payroll report.

Front Month Comex Gold for November delivery advanced by $20.20 (or 0.50%) to $4076.70 per troy ounce. However, for the week, gold slipped by $10.90 (or 0.27%) per troy ounce.

Front Month Comex Silver for November delivery moved lower by 37.40 cents (or 0.74%) to $49.873 per troy ounce. Silver tumbled by 71.70 cents (or 1.42%) per troy ounce for this week.

After the longest shutdown in U.S. history ended last week, traders are parsing key economic releases coming one after other.

Yesterday's U.S. non-farm payrolls data showed an increase of 119,000 jobs in September (against an expected 50,000), rebounding from a revised loss of 4,000 jobs in August.

The unemployment rate crept up to 4.4% in September from 4.3% in August.

Annual wage inflation, as measured by the change in the average hourly earnings, held steady at 3.8%.

In addition, the Department of Labor's data for the week ending November 15, showed a slip in the initial jobless claims by 8,000 from the previous week to 220,000, while the four-week moving average of jobless claims dipped to 224,250.

Several traders feel that the Fed would attach less importance to these reports, as it is a delayed release which may not reflect the actual scenario that prevailed during the shutdown.

Today, New York Fed President John Williams stated that the central bank could still trim interest rates in the near-term without jeopardizing its inflation goal.

Seemingly in response to Williams' remarks, CME Group's FedWatch Tool indicates the chances of a quarter point rate cut at the Fed's December meeting have soared to 73.5 percent from just 39.1 percent on Thursday.

Today, S&P Global data revealed that Composite Purchasing Managers' Index in the U.S. increased to 54.80 points in November from 54.60 points in October.

For the same period, while the flash manufacturing PMI fell to 51.9 in November (the lowest in four months) from 52.5 in October, services PMI inched higher to 55 in November of 2025 from 54.8.

The University of Michigan's November one-year inflation expectations were unexpectedly revised lower to 4.5% from the previously reported 4.7%.

In the U.S. and other markets, concerns of an AI bubble linked to overvaluation in technology sector stocks and increasing doubts on the returns speculated by tech majors recently resulted in sell-off.

Despite blockbuster earnings results from AI bellwether Nvidia yesterday, persisting skepticism about how global tech majors finance the astronomical investments made in the name of AI, raised concerns on the return on investments, which supported the precious metals on the upside.