Happy Friday, traders. Welcome to our weekly market wrap, where we take a look back at these last five trading days with a focus on the market news, economic data, and headlines that had the most impact on gold prices and other key correlated assets— and may continue to in the future.
Here’s what you need to know:
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Gold spot prices surged to $3350/oz Friday after a weak Jobs Report and new tariffs triggered a market shock.
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Earlier in the week, gold briefly dipped below $3300/oz amid Fed uncertainty and profit-taking.
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The Fed held rates steady but hinted that future moves depend on inflation and tariff-driven risks.
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Volatility is expected to carry over into next week due to limited economic data and elevated uncertainty.
Financial markets, both as a technical marketplace and as a mass of people, appeared to be riding the waves pretty smoothly for much of this week. Those waves being one of the highest profile weeks, from a macroeconomic data perspective, in some time, as well as the potential pivot-points of the July FOMC meeting and the enactment of another raft of Trump Tariffs against many of the US’ foundational trading partners.
For gold specifically, trading in the first days of the week was frothy at times as traders positioned themselves for mid-week fireworks and made liquidations to lock in profits before closing the book of business for July. On net, the yellow metal slid slightly lower during these sessions but appeared to have healthy support and ultimately traded comfortably in a band between $3320-3330/oz in the spot market.
Very early Wednesday morning, as managers and investors prepared for the FOMC announcement (and, to a lesser extent, the first-look at US GDP for Q2,) gold endured the sharpest sell-off of the week, breaking down support and taking spot below $3300 just before the US cash-market opened and continuing to slide to the weekly nadir at $3270/oz.
The FOMC’s July announcement was delivered largely as expected: No rate cut yet, to the chagrin of the US administration among others, and a refusal to directly suggest that a cut in September (to say nothing of the Jackson Hole summit this month) is anything more than a possibility while pointing to the potential inflationary effects of the US’ Trump Tariff policy clicking into effect in August as the main reason for needing to “wait and see.”
Gold prices reacted with a moderate rebound, although any rally higher for the precious metal was going to be muted by headwinds following on from the Fed announcement (recall, much of gold’s upward mobility in 2025 has been based on an expectation of lower rates.)
