The Fed Just Raised Rates. Gold Fell, Then Took It Back.
On 16 September the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2023. Gold fell more than 1% on the news. The next day it took almost all of that back.
Two sessions, two opposite moves, and a weekly chart that barely registers either. That gap is the useful thing here, and it matters more if you are buying a chain than if you are trading a contract.
What the Fed did
The Fed raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point to 3.75% to 4.00%, in a unanimous vote, and its updated projections point to at least one more increase before the end of the year. CNBC reported gold falling more than 1% immediately afterwards.
That first reaction is the textbook one. Gold pays no yield, so when the return on holding dollars goes up, the cost of holding gold instead goes up with it.
Then the next day it went the other way. USAGOLD's daily report for 17 September has gold at US$4,310.80, up 1.12% on the session, with silver up about 2.9%. Treasury yields had corrected from their post-decision spike, and buyers came back in.
Intraday quotes on that day varied by source, which is normal and is part of the point of this post. What is not in dispute is the shape: sharp move down, near-complete recovery inside 24 hours.
We said this one was coming
This is a follow-through rather than a surprise.
In the September gold price update we wrote about Fed chair Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole speech on 28 August, where he declined to give forward guidance and called the 2% PCE target "a firm, fixed target." Gold lost US$70 an ounce inside ten minutes, and odds of a rate rise at the next meeting jumped from one-in-three to better than two-in-five.
The meeting has now happened and the rise came. The mechanism we described in early September is the same mechanism that moved the price this week, which is worth saying because it means the framework is doing its job even when the daily direction is unpredictable.
Why the weekly number will look boring
Here is the part that catches people out at a shop counter.
A move down of 1% and a move up of 1.1% in consecutive sessions nets out to almost nothing. Anyone glancing at a weekly or monthly summary would conclude the Fed decision was a non-event. It was the opposite.
| What you looked at | What you would conclude |
|---|---|
| The 16th, in isolation | The hike hit gold hard and the trend is down. |
| The 17th, in isolation | The market shrugged off the hike and gold is fine. |
| The weekly close | Nothing much happened at all. |
All three readings come from the same two days. None of them is wrong, and none of them on its own tells you what your chain costs today.
What this means at the counter
Every shop in Singapore prices off the world rate, converted into Singapore dollars per gram, with its own margin and 9% GST on top:
Price = (gram weight × purity × the day's gold rate) + workmanship + 9% GST
So a week like this one produces genuinely different tickets on genuinely nearby days, and that is the rate doing its job rather than a shop being inconsistent. Two people buying the same chain on the 16th and the 17th paid different amounts, and both were quoted correctly.
Ask what rate the shop is pricing against on the day you are standing there. A figure you saw in a headline last week has already been overtaken twice. We go through how to check any quote at the counter in buying gold at Lucky Plaza, and the method works in any shop in any district, as we set out in where to buy gold in Singapore.
The reframe: you cannot time this, so stop trying
If a fortnight can contain a first rate rise in three years, a 1% drop, a 1.1% recovery and a flat weekly close, then waiting for a calm window to buy is not a strategy. There is no calm window. There is only the rate on the day you happen to walk in.
What you can control is the other side of the formula. Gram weight and construction are yours to choose, and they move the ticket far more reliably than trying to guess what the Fed does in December. A lighter construction gives you the look at fewer grams, which is the whole reason hollow rope exists, and we explain it in is hollow rope real gold? Width is the other lever, and we mapped that in gold chain widths explained.
The Fed will meet again before the year is out, and its own projections say at least one more rise is likely. Gold will react on the day and probably reverse some of it by the next. Neither of those facts tells you anything about which chain to buy.
At JJ Gold we price every piece against the live rate on the day you visit, and we will tell you what that rate is before you decide anything. Every piece is real 916 or 999 gold, never plated, weighed in front of you and hallmarked, with weight and purity on the receipt. If a piece sits past what you wanted to spend in one go, it can go on Shop Now, Pay Later with $0 down and up to 12-month instalments through Atome, PayLater by Grab, or SPayLater by Shopee, and we compare what each costs in our instalment guide.
The Fed raised rates to 3.75% to 4.00% on 16 September, its first rise since 2023. Gold fell over 1%, recovered 1.1% the next day, and the weekly chart will show almost nothing.
Call 8950 4377 for the rate on the day before you make the trip, or come to City Plaza #01-47 (810 Geylang Road, Singapore 409286) or Lucky Plaza #02-47 (304 Orchard Road, Singapore 238863).
Ask for today's rate. Last week's number has already been wrong twice.