Gold price holds jobs-shock gain, Barrick craters

AI desk brief

Gold held near its strongest levels since mid-June after Friday’s shock US payrolls miss pushed traders to price out a September rate hike, while silver surged to a seven-week high and briefly reclaimed $65/oz. COMEX December gold touched $4,421.50/oz and was last up 0.3% at $4,411.20; spot gold gained 0.4% to $4,357.11 after a more than 7% jump last week, its biggest weekly advance since late January. Silver outperformed again, with the September contract up as much as 2.5% to $65.075/oz before easing to $64.87, and spot silver up a similar amount to $64.94, extending its weekly gain to more than 12%.

The move is being underpinned by a shift in Fed expectations after the US economy unexpectedly lost 23,000 jobs in July and prior months were revised lower. Market attention now turns to Wednesday’s CPI and Thursday’s PPI, which will help determine whether the labor-market shock translates into a cleaner dovish repricing for September and beyond. Analysts cited in the piece said the inflation prints are now pivotal for the next leg in gold, while a firmer oil market complicates the disinflation narrative.

Silver’s relative strength is being reinforced by tight physical conditions: the article notes the market is expected to remain in deficit through 2026, and Perth Mint silver product sales rose 65% month-on-month in July to 486,043 oz. Platinum and palladium were softer, but the broader precious-metals complex remains bid as real-rate expectations ease. Near term, the key risk is a hot CPI/PPI pair that reverses the jobs-driven rally; a softer inflation tape would likely keep momentum buyers and macro funds leaning long gold and silver.