Gold prices set for first weekly rise in a month as investors scale back Fed rate hike bets
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- Gold prices rose 1.4% to roughly $4,182.28/oz Friday, on track for a 2.3% weekly gain — its first in five weeks — while front-month U.S. gold futures added 1.5% intraday.
- U.S. nonfarm payrolls added just 57,000 jobs in June, below the revised 129,000 in May and the 115,000 Dow Jones consensus, pushing the implied probability of a September Fed rate hike down from ~65% to 53.5% per CME's FedWatch tool.
- Gold remains down about 22% from its January all-time high above $5,300 and just posted its worst quarter in 13 years through June, with the source attributing earlier selling to inflation fears, a firmer dollar and central bank hawkishness after the U.S.-Iran war.
- Spot silver jumped 2.9% to $62.77/oz, putting it on track for a 6.7% weekly gain, while platinum rose 2.8% to $1,660.10 and palladium climbed 1% to $1,280.09.
- OCBC strategists shifted to "cautiously constructive" on gold, saying softer payrolls reduce "hawkish tail risk" but warned a durable recovery still requires real yields to ease decisively, ETF demand to stabilize, and the Fed to step back from hawkish rhetoric.
- Silver futures suffered their biggest single-day drop since the 1980s in late January, and the source notes gold's safe-haven status was called into question after the February outbreak of the U.S.-Iran war.
Why it matters: September Fed rate-hike odds fell from ~65% to 53.5% after the 57K June payrolls miss (vs 115K expected), giving gold breathing room after its worst quarter in 13 years. But OCBC warns that without a decisive easing of real yields and Fed hawkishness, this 2.3% weekly bounce is tactical — not a trend reversal.
