The selloff in gold slowed the first time in nearly two weeks on Tuesday after the yellow metal hit a new 7-month low on the back of the virtually non-stop surge in Treasury yields and the dollar’s accompanying surge to 11-month highs.

Gold’s most-active futures contract on New York’s Comex, December, settled down $5.70, or 0.3%, at $1,841.50 an ounce.

Earlier in the session, December gold sank to $1,830.95, its lowest since March. The benchmark for U.S. gold futures tumbled 4% last week for its biggest weekly decline since a near 6% plunge during the week to June 11, 2021. Comex gold also wrapped the third quarter down 3% after a 4% drop in the second quarter.

The spot price of gold, more closely watched by some traders than futures, was at $1,823.93 by 15:15 ET (19:15 GMT), down $3.95, or 0.2%. The session low was $1,815.32 — the lowest since the 1,809.40 trough hit in March.

Yields and the dollar received a new upshot after the Labor Department reported earlier on Tuesday that the number of job openings in the United States rose more than expected in August, chipping away at some of the confidence the Federal Reserve may have had in its fight against inflation.

An estimated 9.61 million jobs opened up in August, according to the Labor Department’s latest monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, report. In July, there were just 8.92 million openings. Wall Street economists polled by US media had predicted an August number of just around 8.8 million for job openings.

The JOLTS report came ahead of the more important September non-farm payrolls report scheduled for release on Friday by the Labor Department. The Fed will be watching that closely to help steer its decision on rates. The central bank has repeatedly said that jobs and wage growth have to cool in order to moderate inflation.

Fed’s Bostic moderates hawkish rates talk, helping gold; Japan intervention caps dollar rally
The super hot rally in yields and the dollar cooled somewhat after senior Fed policy maker Raphael Bostic said the central bank was in no rush to pile rate hikes on Americans to get inflation back under control — though he said a restrictive monetary policy will be necessary to keep spending and jobs growth from getting out of whack with the rest of the economy.

What’s more, Bostic, who’s the Atlanta Fed’s president, threw another bone at risk markets getting clobbered by the surge in Treasury yields that came on the back of the selloff in US bonds and the accompanying spike in the dollar to 11-month highs. He suggested there might even be a rate hike by the end of 2024.

His words were more than a solace for longs in commodities and equities, desperate for a break from the fear factor of a super hawkish Fed that has gripped the investing world again after a respite in the second quarter. Coming ahead of a widely expected rate hike in either November or December — and after September’s pause — it was a sign the central bank might be done with newer rate hikes, after its 11 increases between March 2022 and July 2023.

Aside from Bostic, the dollar’s surge was capped by a forex market intervention by the Japanese government to prop up the yen after the dollar-yen trade went above the 150 level.

“Gold prices have found some support after plunging to a 7-month low,” noted Ed Moya, analyst at online trading platform OANDA. “Treasury yields are still rising, so gold’s respect of the $1,830 level could become major support. The rally in yields could continue but we should see some exhaustion as Wall Street awaits the NFP report and ahead of a long weekend.”