02:30 PM EDT, 10/30/2025 (MT Newswires) -- (Corrects to clear up garble in the first paragraph.)

Gold prices firmed above the US$4,000 mark midafternoon on Thursday following the Federal Reserve's rate cut a day earlier, even as the central bank signaled it is likely to pause further easing this year.

Gold for December delivery was last seen up $15.30 to $4,016.00 per ounce.

The price of the metal remains below the Oct. 20 record high of $4,359.40 per ounce even as the Federal Reserve on Wednesday met expectations and cut interest rates by 25 basis points, lowering the carrying cost of owning gold, but Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled further cuts may not be coming this year.

"While the Fed did cut rates as expected, the gold market melted away afterwards given the takeaways from Powell's press conference. In particular, he stated that "a further reduction in the policy rate at the December meeting is not a forgone conclusion-far from it. Policy is not on a preset course", ... This fits with our rates strategists' view that the Fed could skip December, but for gold, it's a negative versus what had been priced in," Christopher Louney, a commodities strategist at RBC Capital Markets, noted.

The dollar rose after Powell's comments. The ICE Dollar index was last seen up 0.32 points to 99.54.

Treasury yields also rose, with the yield on the two-year note up 1.2 basis points to 3.616%, while the 10-year note was paying 4.094%, up 1.8 points.