Gold bars are stored in a safe in Munich, January 28, 2026.
Angelika Warmuth | Reuters
Spot gold prices rose 1.4% 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 a.m. ET, spot the gold was trading at around $4,182.28 an ounce and was on track for a 2.3% weekly gain – which would be its first weekly increase since late May. Front-month US gold futures rose 1.5% on an intraday basis.
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Spot gold
Gold prices have fallen this year as concerns about rising inflation, a strengthening dollar and a hawkish turn by central banks following the U.S.-Iran war have dented appetite.
The yellow metal showed its worst quarter in 13 years in the three months to June, and is still trading at a roughly 22% discount to the all-time high of more than $5,300 hit in January.
Gold’s rebound this week comes after the release of US non-farm payrolls data on Thursday. showed The American economy created 57,000 jobs in June, less than the 129,000 created in May, revised downwards, and less than the 115,000 forecast by the Dow Jones consensus.
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 the CME’s FedWatch tool, after holding rates steady in July.
Before Thursday’s jobs report, markets were giving about a 65% chance of a rate hike in September.
Precious metals gainPrecious metals across the board rose Friday morning. Spotted silver jumped 2.9% to $62.77 an ounce, putting it on track for a weekly gain of around 6.7%. Silver futures for August delivery rose 3.5%.
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Spotted Silver
One-off platinum was last seen up 2.8% at $1,660.10, while palladium was around 1% higher at $1,280.09.
In a note released Friday, OCBC strategists said they were “cautiously constructive” on gold.
“Weaker-than-expected wage data helps reduce the risk of extreme upside,” they said. “In the short term, we would shift from a cautious to a cautiously constructive tone. Gold may extend the rally if new US data continues to cap real yields and the dollar.”
However, they said that with unemployment stable, hawkish rhetoric from the Fed and inflation risks intact, some tactical caution is required.
“A more sustainable recovery in gold requires real yields to ease more decisively, ETF/investor demand to stabilize, and the Fed to reverse its hawkish rhetoric,” they said. “Technically, the risks are tilted to the upside.”
Gold and silver saw record rallies in 2025, rising 66% and 135%, respectively, over the course of the year. So far this year, they have fallen 3% and 12%.
As the recovery continued into early 2026, trading quickly became volatile. Silver futures suffered their biggest hit since the 1980s in late January and gold’s safe-haven status was called into question after the outbreak of war between the United States and Iran in February.