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With Federal Reserve officials lately dropping hints that conditions are becoming more favorable for a U.S. interest-rate hike, all eyes will be on the monthly U.S. jobs report due out next Friday.

A strong number could heighten expectations for monetary tightening, and vice-versa.

Gold had a volatile session Friday after Fed Chair Janet Yellen suggested the case for a hike has strengthened. The metal briefly fell, but then spent most of the session in higher territory. Observers suggested gold held up since Yellen’s remarks were not seen as excessively hawkish and the market had perhaps already factored them into prices as gold fell in the run-up to her appearance at the annual Fed symposium at Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Comex December gold was at $1,325 an ounce as of 1:45 p.m. EDT, which was a loss of $20.80 for the week.

Gold pared gains on Friday, while the dollar turned up and U.S. stocks fell, as investors struggled to decipher the timing of a U.S. interest rate increase following comments by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and other officials.

In her much-awaited speech, Yellen said the case for raising U.S. interest rates has strengthened, although increases should be gradual. Spot gold rallied 1.5 percent to $1,341.60 an ounce and the U.S. dollar index fell 0.6 percent after Yellen spoke, but bullion later gave back all its gains and the greenback rallied 0.7 percent after Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer suggested that rate hikes were on track for this year.

The U.S. dollar was certainly stronger, although, except against the yen and Swiss franc – major haven currencies, there was nothing terribly unusual in the uptick. The greenback was up versus the yen by 1.35% and versus the franc by 1.20%.

Gold in so-called regular trading would have been up significantly but the dollar strength weighed and pushed it into the red.

In the very near term, traders will continue to monitor any other comments from Fed officials at Jackson Hole, said James Steel, precious-metals analyst with HSBC. Then attention will turn to next week’s U.S. economic data.

“The big issue will be Friday’s unemployment report,” Steel said. “That will be very important. It always is.”