Economic Events That Move Gold

Nine releases account for most of gold's largest single-session moves, and all nine are American. That is not a coincidence — gold is priced in dollars and driven by US real yields, so the US data calendar is effectively the gold calendar. Four of them dominate, and the other five are listed at the end where they belong.

Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP) · every first Friday of the month

The US employment report, released on the first Friday of most months at 8:30am New York time. Track 4's lesson 4 covers its three components; what matters here is how gold reads them.

Rows 3 and 4 are common, and they produce the pattern you will see repeatedly on a gold chart at 8:30: a sharp move on the headline, then a reversal three to five minutes later once the wage figure is read. Neither move is more "real" than the other; the first traded one number and the second traded a different one.

• Spreads on gold widen dramatically at the release, and stops fill far from where they sit.
• Revisions matter, and are printed in the same release — a beat alongside large downward revisions is net weaker.
• A $20 to $40 move in the first minutes is ordinary, which on one standard lot is $2,000 to $4,000.

CPI / Core CPI · US inflation

Monthly, mid-morning New York time, and frequently the largest scheduled gold mover of the month.

The reaction runs through real yields, as lesson 2 established. Hot core inflation implies a higher-for-longer rate path, which raises expected real yields, which is negative for gold — and the chain runs in reverse for a soft print.

PCE, the measure the Federal Reserve actually targets, arrives later in the month and usually moves gold less — because by then most of its content has been inferred from CPI. Track 4's lesson 3 explains that asymmetry in full.

FOMC Meeting & Interest Rate Decision

Eight times a year. The decision arrives at 2pm New York time, and the press conference begins thirty minutes later.

Those two events are separate trades, and treating them as one is the usual mistake. The decision itself is almost always priced; the guidance is not, and gold has reversed its entire post-decision move during the press conference more often than any other instrument on this list.

1. 2:00pm — the decision and statement. Read the statement as a diff, and the vote split.
2. 2:00pm — the projections, at the meetings that publish them. The change in the median dot is the news, not its level.
3. 2:30pm — the press conference. Unscripted answers about the reaction function, which is where the durable direction usually gets set.

Fed Chair Powell speeches · reading the signals

Unscheduled and semi-scheduled remarks by the Federal Reserve chair move gold, sometimes more than a data release, because they can change the expected path without waiting for a meeting.

• Listen for the reaction function, not the tone: what would make them cut, what would make them pause, how much one bad month weighs.
• Other officials matter too, especially when several say the same new thing in a week.
• These appear on the calendar late, which is why Track 4's routine says to re-check each morning rather than only on Sunday.

The other five

Build the week from these exactly as Track 4's lesson 8 describes: filter the calendar to USD and high impact, mark the two or three you will not trade through, and decide before the session whether each position is closed, held at reduced size, or waited out. On gold, with its range, that decision is worth more than it is anywhere else on this site.