Gold and silver rise; gold on track for first weekly gain since May

Spot gold prices rose by 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.

By 4:30 a.m. ET, spot gold was trading at around $4,182.28 an ounce and on course for a 2.3% weekly gain – which would be its first weekly rise since late May. Front-month U.S. gold futures were up by 1.5% on an intraday basis.

Gold prices have fallen this year, with concerns about rising inflation, a firmer dollar and a hawkish turn among central banks in the wake of the U.S.-Iran war denting appetite.

The yellow metal posted its worst quarter in 13 years in the three months to June, and is still trading at a discount of around 22% from an all-time high of over $5,300 reached in January.

Gold’s rebound this week comes after U.S. nonfarm payrolls data, published Thursday, showed the American economy added 57,000 jobs in June, less than the downwardly revised 129,000 added in May and lower than the 115,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast.

Markets are currently pricing in a 53.5% chance of the Fed raising interest rates by at least a quarter-point in September, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool, after holding rates steady in July.

Prior to the release of Thursday’s jobs report, markets had been giving a September rate hike a probability of around 65%.

Precious metals across the board moved higher on Friday morning. Spot 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 added 3.5%.  

Spot platinum 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 constructive” on gold.

“The softer-than-expected payrolls data helps reduce the hawkish tail risk,” they said. “Near term, we would shift the tone from cautious to cautiously constructive. Gold can extend the recovery if incoming US data continue to cap real yields and the USD.”

However, they said that with unemployment steady, Fed rhetoric hawkish and inflation risks intact, some tactical caution is warranted.

“A more durable recovery in gold needs real yields to ease more decisively, ETF/investor demand to stabilize and Fed to step back on its hawkish rhetoric,” they said. “Technically, risks are skewed to the upside.”

Both gold and silver enjoyed record-smashing rallies in 2025, surging 66% and 135% respectively over the course of the year. So far this year, they have fallen 3% and 12%.

While the rally continued into early 2026, trade soon turned volatile. Silver futures suffered their biggest single-day blow since the 1980s at the end of January and gold’s safe haven status has been called into question after the outbreak of the U.S.-Iran war in February.