Sep 7 to 11 weekly setups: gold rejected at the channel top, oil breaks out, CPI lands Friday
By Emanuele Calcina · Published 5 September 2026 · Prices are Friday closes, pulled 5 September 2026 · All weekly forecasts
The August jobs report was supposed to be a formality. Economists had 53,000 pencilled in. The number came out at 162,000, the best month since March, and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%. Gold had been sitting just under the top of its descending channel when the number hit, and it did what gold usually does when hike odds jump: it gave back the week.
That is the setup we carry into 7 to 11 September. The Fed is in its blackout period ahead of the 15 and 16 September meeting, so there are no speeches to trade. There is only data. Producer prices on Thursday, consumer prices on Friday, and an ECB decision in between. Every chart below is the daily timeframe, drawn from Friday's close, with the pattern we are actually trading against, not the one that looks nicest.
The week at a glance
| Market | Friday close | Week | Daily chart | 20-day low / high | What decides the week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | 4,429.80 | -1.08% | inside the descending channel | 4,292.20 / 4,670.90 | PPI Thursday, CPI Friday. A hot pair of prints keeps the channel top intact. |
| Silver | 66.05 | -1.42% | inside the descending channel | 63.12 / 71.16 | Same prints as gold, plus the gold-silver ratio, which is still compressing. |
| US Dollar Index | 99.16 | -0.54% | inside the ascending channel | 98.56 / 100.08 | Whether the 99 handle holds through CPI with the Fed silent. |
| WTI crude | 91.48 | +9.69% | breaking out above the symmetrical triangle | 77.79 / 93.14 | Hormuz traffic. Anything above five daily crossings takes the bid out. |
| Bitcoin | 79,697 | +1.46% | breaking out above the descending channel | 62,687 / 82,262 | Whether ETF inflows keep running after the $731 million day. |
| EUR/USD | 1.1621 | -0.30% | inside the descending channel | 1.1513 / 1.1712 | ECB Thursday. A 25 bp hike is priced; the press conference is the trade. |
| GBP/USD | 1.3517 | -0.59% | inside the descending channel | 1.3475 / 1.3675 | UK GDP Friday, then the BoE on the 17th. |
| USD/JPY | 156.22 | -1.95% | inside the ascending channel | 155.28 / 160.38 | Japan GDP Monday, BoJ on the 18th, intervention risk all week. |
Closes are the front-month futures contract for gold, silver and crude, the cash index for DXY, and spot for bitcoin and FX. The daily-chart column is what our pattern scan reads off the chart, not an opinion.
GoldGold gives back August's top after payrolls revive the hike trade
Gold closed the week at 4,429.80 on the front-month contract, down about 1.1%, after a strong US employment report put a September rate hike back on the table. Spot traded through 4,500 on Thursday when Governor Waller said he could support holding rates. Friday's print reversed that in about forty minutes.
On the daily chart the story is simpler than the headlines. Gold has been inside a descending channel since the February spike. The August rally ran straight into the upper line around 4,670, printed a lower high, and turned down. Friday's close is back inside the channel, roughly 180 dollars below the top and well above the 4,000 area where the July lows sit.
What the jobs report actually changed
The headline was 162,000 new jobs against 53,000 expected. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% on the month and 3.1% on the year, which is not the kind of wage growth that scares the Fed on its own. The unemployment rate held at 4.1%. What moved gold was the repricing: market-implied odds of a hike at the September meeting went from roughly 52% to about 59% within the hour.
Higher hike odds mean a higher real yield on cash, and gold pays nothing. That is the whole mechanism. It is also why the reaction faded through the afternoon. The 10-year yield had already hit its highest level since November 2023 earlier in the week and could not add much more on one print.
Waller versus Warsh
Chair Warsh used Jackson Hole to keep a hike on the table. Waller, on Wednesday, said his next vote would be heavily influenced by August inflation and that he would be willing to hold if progress toward 2% continued. Those two positions are now the entire argument, and the data on Thursday and Friday will settle it.
We are not going to guess the print. What we can say is that gold has spent five months making lower highs, and one strong labour report does not break that. Nor does one soft CPI. The channel top near 4,610 to 4,650 is the level that decides whether August was a bottom or a bounce.
How we are trading it
Our desk stays with the channel until price closes above it on the daily. Inside the channel we sell rallies into the upper third and buy dips toward the lower third, with stops outside the lines. Right now price sits in the middle, which is the worst place to start a trade, so we wait for the market to come to a level.
A close above 4,650 flips us to buying pullbacks. A break of 4,300 puts the July base at 4,000 back in play. Both of those are more likely to happen on Friday than on any other day, so we keep size small until CPI has printed.
Bottom line. Gold is inside a descending channel that has held since February, and the August rally was rejected at its top. Payrolls raised September hike odds to about 59%, which is why the week ended lower.
PPI on Thursday and CPI on Friday decide the next leg. Above 4,650 the channel is broken. Below 4,300 the July lows near 4,000 come back into view.
SilverSilver stalls at 67 as the same Fed math bites harder
Silver ended the week at 66.05 on the front month, down about 1.4%, after a run to 67.41 on Wednesday failed. It is a familiar shape. Silver moves with gold but with more beta, so every 1% gold gives back turns into 1.5% or 2% in silver.
The daily chart still reads as a descending channel from the February high above 120, and price has been grinding inside the lower half of it since June. The summer rebound off the 43 area was the strongest leg of the year, and it has not yet threatened the upper line, which sits close to 69.
Why silver reacts more than gold
Roughly half of silver demand is industrial, so it trades as a hybrid: part inflation hedge, part cyclical metal. When hike odds rise, both halves get hit at once. The real-yield argument hurts the monetary side, and the growth-slowdown argument hurts the industrial side.
That is also why silver led on the way up in August, when the market was pricing a softer Fed. It will lead again if CPI comes in cool. The gold-silver ratio has been falling since the spring and sits near 67 ounces of silver per ounce of gold, down from over 80 in the winter.
The levels that matter this week
Wednesday's 67.41 is the immediate ceiling. Above it, the channel top near 69 is the level that would change the bigger picture. Below, the 200-day average around 66.9 has already been lost on a closing basis, and the 50-day around 65.4 is the next place buyers should show up.
We treat silver as a confirmation instrument rather than a lead. If gold closes above its channel and silver is still stuck under 67.4, the gold move is suspect. If silver breaks first, we lean into gold longs with more confidence.
Bottom line. Silver is inside the same kind of descending channel as gold, trading under 67 with the 50-day average near 65.4 as the nearest support.
It will amplify whatever the inflation data does to gold. Above 69 the channel breaks. Below 65 the summer rally is over.
DXYThe dollar index sits on the floor of its rising channel with the Fed silent
DXY closed at 99.16, down about half a percent on the week, and the whole decline came from the yen. The index bounced on payrolls, faded within hours, and ended near the bottom of a rising channel that has been in place since the February low near 96.
That is an unusual place for the dollar to be while hike odds are rising. It tells you the market has already priced most of the Fed story and is now trading the other side of every pair: a BoJ that may hike on the 18th and an ECB that is almost certain to hike on Thursday.
Why strong data did not lift the dollar
Friday's move up in the index lasted about as long as the move up in yields. Once the 10-year gave back part of its spike, the dollar followed. Markets had leaned toward a hike as recently as Wednesday, at close to 65%, before Waller talked it down to a coin flip. Payrolls only restored what had been lost.
Meanwhile the yen jumped more than 2% on Thursday to 155.28, a one-month high, on rising BoJ hike bets and suspected intervention. The yen carries about 14% of the index. A 2% yen move is worth roughly 0.3 points of DXY on its own, which is most of the week's decline.
What we watch for gold
For our purposes DXY is a filter. Gold rarely sustains a rally while the dollar index is making higher highs, and it rarely sustains a selloff while the index is losing its channel. The lower line of the channel runs through about 98.7. A daily close below that with gold still inside its own channel would be the first real divergence in months.
The 99 handle held every test in August. If it holds again through CPI, the dollar is fine and gold has to do the work on its own. If it breaks, the burden shifts.
Bottom line. DXY is at the lower edge of a rising channel around 98.7 to 99, held there by yen strength rather than by anything the Fed said.
A close under 98.7 is dollar-negative and takes pressure off gold. A hold through Friday keeps the Fed story in charge.
OilCrude breaks its triangle as the Hormuz campaign escalates
WTI closed at 91.48, up about 9.7% on the week, the biggest weekly gain since July. The move started on Sunday when US forces struck two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island, and it accelerated on Tuesday when the US hit Iranian tankers for the first time. Crude touched 90 on 1 September and has not looked back.
On the daily chart this is a clean break. Oil had been compressing inside a symmetrical triangle since the spring: lower highs from the April spike above 115, higher lows from the winter base near 60. Price closed above the falling line on 1 September and has held above it for four sessions.
The supply picture is the whole story
Visible commodity crossings through the Strait of Hormuz fell to about five vessels on Tuesday, against 23 the previous Wednesday. Roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil normally moves through that channel. When traffic drops that far, the market prices the risk that it stays down, regardless of what OPEC or US inventories say.
Peace comments from Russia and a possible South Korean naval contribution to the escort effort offered small relief late in the week. Neither changed the number of ships moving. Until crossings recover, dips get bought.
Why oil now matters for gold
This is the part most gold traders miss. Ninety-dollar crude feeds straight into headline inflation, which feeds straight into the Fed decision on the 16th and the ECB decision on Thursday. A hot CPI on Friday that is mostly energy is a different animal from a hot core print. The first is a reason for the Fed to wait; the second is a reason to hike.
So we read Friday's CPI in two lines: headline and core. If oil is doing the damage, gold can rally on a hot headline number. If core is doing it, gold sells.
Levels
The broken triangle line now runs through about 85.6 and is the retest level. As long as that holds on a closing basis, the breakout is alive and the April high near 118 is the next target on the chart. A close back under 85 would make the breakout a trap, which happens more often in oil than in any other market we trade.
Bottom line. WTI broke above its symmetrical triangle on 1 September on the Hormuz escalation and closed the week at 91.48, its best week since July.
The retest level is 85.6. Above it, the April high near 118 is the target. Watch daily strait crossings more than inventories.
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BitcoinBitcoin holds its breakout on the biggest ETF day since January
Bitcoin is trading near 79,700 as we write, after holding above 81,000 for most of Friday. It broke above a five-month descending channel on 21 August with one of the largest daily candles of the year, and it has spent two weeks consolidating above the broken line instead of falling back through it. That is what a real breakout looks like.
The money is visible. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in about 731 million dollars on 3 September, the largest single-day inflow since 14 January, and another 175 million on Friday. BlackRock's IBIT accounted for 117 million of Friday's total.
Why Waller mattered more for bitcoin than for gold
Bitcoin is a liquidity asset first. When a Fed governor says he could hold rates, that is a direct input into the funding cost of leveraged crypto positions, and the market treats it that way. Thursday's move was 5% in a day. Gold managed 2% on the same headline.
The flip side is that bitcoin will also react harder to a hot CPI. It does not have gold's central-bank bid underneath it. If the Fed narrative swings back to a hike on Friday, the 21 August breakout candle is where support should be found, roughly 73,000 to 74,000.
How this fits our book
We do not send bitcoin signals, so this section is for context. What we watch is the correlation. Through August bitcoin and gold moved together on Fed headlines; through the Hormuz escalation they diverged, with gold catching a safe-haven bid and bitcoin trading as risk.
If both rally on Friday's CPI, the market is pricing a softer Fed and the gold channel top is in play. If bitcoin rallies alone, it is a liquidity story that says nothing about gold.
Bottom line. Bitcoin broke a five-month descending channel on 21 August and has held above it for two weeks, with record-pace ETF inflows behind the move.
Support is the breakout zone near 73,000 to 74,000. A hot CPI tests it; a cool one likely sends price toward the spring high above 82,000.
EUR/USDEUR/USD slips before an ECB hike that everyone already expects
EUR/USD closed at 1.1621, down about 0.3% on the week. The pair drifted lower after payrolls and stayed inside the descending channel that has capped it since the January high near 1.20. The upper line of that channel now sits just under 1.17, and price tested it twice in late August without getting through.
The event this week is the ECB on Thursday. Eurozone inflation is back above 3%, and every one of the 65 economists in the latest Reuters poll expects a 25 basis point hike to 2.50%. Market pricing puts the odds near 99%. A move that certain is not a trade on its own. The press conference is.
Hike, then what
Nomura's base case is a hike on Thursday followed by a pause, with the risk skewed toward more. Futures price about a 40% chance of a further increase by December. If Lagarde leans into the oil-driven inflation risk, the euro can push through 1.17 even with the Fed leaning hawkish. If she frames this as one-and-done, the pair sells the fact.
Energy is the swing factor here too. Europe imports the oil that just went to 91 dollars. That is an inflation problem for the ECB and a growth problem at the same time, and the bank's communication has to cover both.
Levels
1.169 is the channel top and the level to beat. The August lows near 1.152 are the first support inside the channel, and the lower line runs near 1.124. Between the ECB on Thursday and US CPI on Friday, the pair has two chances to break out of a range that has held all summer.
Bottom line. EUR/USD is inside a descending channel with the top near 1.17. An ECB hike to 2.50% on Thursday is fully priced, so the reaction depends on guidance.
Hawkish guidance plus a cool US CPI is the combination that breaks 1.17. Anything else keeps the range.
GBP/USDSterling prints a lower high at the channel top with GDP and the BoE ahead
GBP/USD closed at 1.3517, down about 0.6% on the week. Cable ran from the late-June low near 1.315 to 1.3675 on 26 August, touched the upper line of the descending channel that has capped it since the January high near 1.385, and turned. That is a lower high in the same series as gold's. The channel top now runs near 1.366 and the floor near 1.31.
Governor Bailey said on 28 August that the UK is not yet seeing significant second-round inflation effects, and on Friday he added that policymakers have some discretion over how fast they return inflation to target. Neither comment is hawkish. The BoE meets on 17 September and the market is not expecting a move.
What moves the pound this week
July GDP prints Friday morning, a few hours before US CPI. The UK economy has been growing slowly and the pound has been trading more on rate differentials than on growth, so a small miss will not matter much. A large one would, because it would bring a BoE cut back into the conversation for the autumn.
Fiscal worries are the other weight. Bailey has been talking about long-term pressures on government debt, and gilt yields have followed US yields higher. That caps the pound on rallies even when the dollar is soft.
Levels
1.3475 is the 20-day low and the level a bounce needs to hold. 1.3675 is the August high and the channel line above it is near 1.366, so anything through 1.37 on a daily close breaks the structure. Below 1.34 the middle of the channel gives way and 1.31, the channel floor, comes into view.
Bottom line. GBP/USD printed a lower high at the top of its descending channel on 26 August and closed the week mid-channel at 1.3517.
UK GDP on Friday and US CPI a few hours later set the direction into the 17 September BoE meeting. 1.37 breaks the channel; 1.34 opens 1.31.
USD/JPYUSD/JPY drops to the channel floor as BoJ hike bets and intervention collide
USD/JPY closed at 156.22, down about 1.9% on the week, the largest weekly fall since the coordinated US-Japan intervention in early August. The yen touched 155.28 on Thursday, a one-month high, after hawkish comments from BoJ officials raised the odds of a hike at the 18 September meeting.
On the daily chart the pair is sitting right on the lower line of the rising channel that has carried it since the winter low near 152. Friday's bounce off 155.8 is a textbook channel-floor reaction. Whether it holds is a policy question, not a technical one.
Two forces pulling the same way
The BoJ has moved from a bank that talks about hiking to one that markets think will do it this month. That narrows the gap with US rates and takes the edge off the carry trade. On top of that, the finance ministry has already intervened once with US backing and has said it is ready to do so again. Nobody wants to be long USD/JPY at 160 when that happens.
Against that, the Fed hike trade is not dead. If PPI and CPI run hot, US yields rise and the pair rallies regardless of Tokyo. That is why Friday's bounce happened at all.
What it means for gold
A stronger yen weakens the dollar index more than any other single currency. If the channel floor breaks and the pair heads toward the August intervention lows, DXY loses its channel too, and that is the scenario where gold rallies even without a soft CPI. We watch USD/JPY on Monday morning, after Japan's GDP revision, for the first hint.
Levels
155.28 is Thursday's low and the line in the sand. A close below it opens the August lows near 152. On the upside 158 is the first resistance from the late-August consolidation, and the channel top runs near 164.5.
Bottom line. USD/JPY is on the floor of its rising channel near 155.8 after a 1.9% weekly drop driven by BoJ hike bets and intervention risk.
A close under 155.28 breaks the channel and weakens the dollar index with it. Hot US inflation data is the only thing that clearly saves the pair this week.
The calendar that decides it
The Fed is in blackout from 5 September until the 16 September decision, so this week is pure data. Times are Rome time (CET). US releases are at 08:30 New York, which is 14:30 CET.
| Day | Time (CET) | Release | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 7 | 01:50 | Japan Q2 GDP, revised | Feeds BoJ hike odds for the 18th. First mover for USD/JPY and DXY. |
| Tue 8 | all day | No tier-one data; Fed blackout | Oil headlines and Hormuz traffic run the tape. |
| Wed 9 | 03:30 | China CPI and PPI, August | Industrial-metal demand read for silver and copper. |
| Thu 10 | 14:15 | ECB rate decision (press conference 14:45) | 25 bp hike to 2.50% fully priced. Guidance decides EUR/USD. |
| Thu 10 | 14:30 | US PPI, August, and weekly jobless claims | First of the two inflation prints that decide the Fed. |
| Fri 11 | 08:00 | UK GDP, July | Sets sterling into the 17 September BoE meeting. |
| Fri 11 | 14:30 | US CPI, August | The print of the week. Headline was 3.5% on the year in July. Watch core versus energy. |
| Fri 11 | 16:00 | University of Michigan sentiment, preliminary | Inflation expectations component matters more than the headline. |
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Questions traders asked us this week
Is gold bullish or bearish for the week of 7 to 11 September 2026?
Neither, on the daily chart. Gold is inside a descending channel that has held since February and was rejected at the top of it in August near 4,670. Friday's CPI decides whether it retests that level or heads back toward 4,300.
What time is US CPI on Friday 11 September 2026?
08:30 New York time, which is 14:30 CET and 13:30 London. PPI is released at the same time on Thursday 10 September.
Does the ECB rate hike on Thursday move gold?
Indirectly. A hawkish ECB lifts EUR/USD, which lowers the dollar index, and a weaker dollar supports gold. The effect is usually smaller than a US inflation surprise, but it can decide the direction on a quiet day.
Why does a strong jobs report push gold down?
Because it raises the odds of a Fed rate hike. Higher rates mean a higher return on cash, and gold pays nothing, so the opportunity cost of holding it goes up. Friday's 162,000 print moved hike odds from about 52% to 59% and gold fell within the hour.
Which level breaks the gold channel?
A daily close above the upper line, which runs through about 4,610 now and touched 4,670 in August. We use closes, not wicks. A spike through the line that closes back inside does not count.
Why do you cover oil and bitcoin on a gold site?
Oil feeds headline inflation, which feeds the Fed decision, which moves gold. Bitcoin tells us whether the market is trading a liquidity story or a safe-haven story. Both change how we read a gold move on the same headline.
Are the charts the same as the ones in the VIP channel?
Same data and same lines. The VIP channel adds the intraday entries, stops and targets around these levels, sent before the release rather than after it.
How often is this page updated?
The full eight-market article every Saturday from Friday's close. One market a day during the week, after the New York close: DXY Monday, oil Tuesday, silver Wednesday, bitcoin Thursday, gold Friday.
Keep reading
Trading gold, FX, crude and crypto on margin carries a high level of risk and you can lose more than your deposit. Nothing on this page is a personal recommendation. Levels are taken from the daily chart at Friday's close and can be invalidated by a single print.