Gold bars stored in a vault in Munich on January 28, 2026.
Angelica Warmsreuter
Spot gold prices rose 1.4% on Friday morning, putting the precious metal, which has been under sustained pressure this year, on track for its first weekly gain in five weeks.
by 4:30 a.m. Eastern Time. spot gold It is trading near $4,182.28 an ounce and is on track for a 2.3% weekly gain, its first weekly increase since late May. US gold futures rose 1.5% on an intraday basis last month.
spot gold
Gold prices have fallen this year on concerns about rising inflation, a strong dollar and central banks becoming more hawkish after the U.S.-Iranian war.
The yellow metal suffered its worst quarter in 13 years in the three months to June and is still trading at a discount of about 22% from its all-time high of more than $5,300 hit in January.
Gold’s rally this week comes after Thursday’s US non-farm payrolls report showed the US economy added 57,000 jobs in June, below the revised May payroll of 129,000 and below the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 115,000.
According to CME’s FedWatch tool, the market is currently pricing in a 53.5% chance that the Fed will raise rates by at least a quarter of a percentage point in September after leaving them unchanged in July.
Before Thursday’s employment report, the market believed the probability of a rate hike in September was about 65%.
Precious metal profits
Precious metal prices rose across the board on Friday morning. spot silver It rose 2.9% to $62.77 an ounce, putting it on track for a weekly gain of about 6.7%. Silver futures for August rose 3.5%.
spot silver
spot platinum Palladium was last traded 2.8% higher at $1,660.10, while palladium was up about 1% at $1,280.09.
OCBC strategists said in a note Friday that they were “cautiously constructive” on gold.
“Weaker-than-expected employment data helps reduce hawkish tail risks,” they said. “In the short term, the tone will shift from cautious to cautiously constructive. If upcoming US economic data continues to constrain real yields and the US dollar, gold could extend the recovery.”
But some tactical caution is warranted, they said, as unemployment remains stable and the Fed’s hawkish rhetoric and inflation risks remain intact.
“A more sustained recovery for gold requires a more decisive moderation in real yields, stable ETF and investor demand, and less hawkish rhetoric from the Fed,” they said. “Technically, the risks are skewed to the upside.”
Gold and silver both hit record highs in 2025, rising 66% and 135% respectively for the year. It has fallen 3% and 12% so far this year.
The rise continued into early 2026, but trade soon became unstable. Silver futures suffered their biggest single-day hit since the 1980s at the end of January, and gold’s safe-haven status has been called into question since the U.S.-Iran war broke out in February.
