Gold bars are kept in a safe deposit box in Munich, Jan. 28, 2026.
Angelica Warmuth Reuters
Spot gold prices rose 1.4% on Friday morning, putting the precious metal on track for its first weekly gain in five weeks after coming under sustained pressure this year.
At 4:30 am ET, color gold it was trading at around $4,182.28 an ounce and would have a weekly gain of 2.3% – which would be its first weekly increase since late May. US gold futures for the front month rose 1.5% during the day.
Spot the gold
Gold prices have fallen this year, with concerns about rising inflation, a strong dollar and a hawkish shift among central banks after the US-Iran war dampened enthusiasm.
The yellow metal posted its worst quarter in 13 years in the three months to June, and is still trading at a nearly 22% discount from a high of more than $5,300 reached in January.
Gold’s return this week comes after US nonfarm payrolls data, published on Thursday, showed the US economy added 57,000 jobs in June, below the revised 129,000 added in May and lower than the Dow Jones consensus forecast of 115,000.
Markets are currently pricing in a 53.5% chance that the Fed will raise interest rates by at least a quarter-point in September, according to CME’s FedWatch tool, after rates were unchanged in July.
Before the release of Thursday’s jobs report, markets were giving a September rate hike a possible 65%.
Precious metals are gaining
Precious metals across the board moved higher on Friday morning. Silver color it jumped 2.9% to $62.77 an ounce, putting it on track for a weekly gain of about 6.7%. Silver futures for August delivery added 3.5%.
Silver color
Spot platinum it was last seen trading 2.8% higher at $1,660.10, while palladium was about 1% higher at $1,280.09.
In a note on Friday, strategists at OCBC said they were “cautiously bullish” on gold.
“Softer-than-expected payrolls data helps reduce hawkish tail risk,” they said. “In the near future, we will shift the tone from cautious to cautiously constructive. Gold could extend gains if incoming US data continues to accumulate gains for the real and the USD.”
However, they say that with unemployment continuing, Fed rhetoric hawkish and inflation risks unchanged, prudent caution is warranted.
“A long-term recovery in gold requires real yields to ease, ETF/investor demand to stabilize and the Fed to back off its hawkish rhetoric,” they said. “Technically, the risks are volatile.”
Both gold and silver enjoyed record rallies in 2025, rising 66% and 135% respectively during the year. So far this year, they are down 3% and 12%.
As the rally continued into early 2026, trading quickly took a turn for the worse. Silver futures suffered their biggest one-day slump since the 1980s at the end of January and gold’s safe-haven status has been called into question after the US-Iran war broke out in February.
