Good morning traders
Friday said the US jobs market is cooling. Monday said prices aren't. Put those two together and you have the reason gold keeps missing the break everyone's waiting for.
š Two numbers, one week
Hiring slowed and prices sped up, and the bond market listened to prices.
Friday, jobs. The US added 29,000 jobs in September against a median forecast of 90,000, and unemployment rose to 4.2%. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2 October 2026.)
Monday, prices. The ISM services survey's prices index hit 74.0, the highest since July 2022. Services are most of the US economy, so that's not a side detail. (Institute for Supply Management, 5 October 2026.)
On its own, a weak jobs number pushes the Fed toward easing. Hot prices push the other way. The bond market picked prices: the ten-year Treasury yield touched 5.35% on Monday and closed Tuesday at 5.27%.
Gold pays nothing. When a government bond pays more than 5%, gold has to work much harder to earn a place in anyone's account. That's the whole story of the last week.
šŖ Why I'm not moving my line
I've had gold on my list for weeks with one condition: a clean break above a line I wrote down in advance. It hasn't come. Spot gold is at $4,119.50 this morning, about 6% under that line. A week ago it was 5.2% under.
The tempting move is to drag the line down to where price is, so the trade finally happens. That's how a breakout plan turns into catching a falling metal, and this week it would have put me long into a Fed that's just been handed a reason to stay tough.
A trigger is a question you write down before price gets there. If price says no, the answer is no.
Before you move any level on any chart, ask three things:
-> Did the reason for the trade change, or only the price?
-> Would I draw this new level if I were seeing the chart for the first time today?
-> Is the risk on the new level one I'd take on a brand new trade?
If any answer is no, leave the line where it is. If the reason has really changed, that's a new trade, and it gets a new plan from scratch.
ā±ļø One thing worth doing today
Run that first question on your own market. The free section of the RB Trading Desk has a Momentum check: type in any stock, pair or coin and it reads the trend and the momentum the way we do, then tells you the next step. It's free with an email.
š¬ The full version
The Gate Board on Substack has where all three of my gates sit going into tonight's Fed minutes, the one trade that stopped me out this week and the one that triggered.
š Next issue
The Fed minutes land at 2pm ET tonight. Next issue: what they said, and what they did to gold.
The RB Trading Journal is 20% off for readers of this letter with this link.
Education, not financial advice or a recommendation. Jobs figures are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, services figures from the Institute for Supply Management, yields from Yahoo Finance, and gold is spot XAU/USD. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results.