Key Takeaways:
- Gold spot prices reached $4,829 per troy ounce at the end of the week, marking a fourth consecutive weekly gain.
- COMEX futures closed at $4,879, up 1.48%, driven by Iran’s Strait of Hormuz truce and U.S. dollar weakness.
- Analysts expect gold to hold near record levels as Fed rate-cut signals and lingering Middle East uncertainty sustain safe-haven demand.
Gold to Open Monday at $4,830
The spot price reflected modest gains from Friday’s close, which USAGOLD logged at $4,829, up $40 or roughly 0.84% from April 16. COMEX near-month futures closed Friday at $4,879, a gain of $71 or 1.48%, on volume of approximately 130,000 contracts. The session range stretched from $4,785 to a high of $4,917.
By Sunday afternoon, Kitco’s bid and ask page quoted the metal between $4,829 and $4,831. Goldprice.org tracked a 24-hour gain of $45.63 or about 0.95% heading into the afternoon.
Weekend trading, as is typical for over-the-counter (OTC) spot markets, carried forward Friday’s levels with minimal movement. Saturday saw no formal COMEX settlement, and gold held steady in the $4,790 to $4,831 range before ticking slightly higher into Sunday.
The three-day net gain from the April 16 close of approximately $4,790 to Sunday’s price stood at roughly $41, or 0.85%. The bulk of that move was built during Friday’s session, when intraday momentum in futures and spot ran between 1% and 1.5%.
The primary driver over the three-day window was Iran’s announcement that the Strait of Hormuz was open for commercial shipping during a 10-day truce period tied to Israel-Lebanon ceasefire progress. That news sent oil prices sharply lower by more than 10% at certain points during the week, which in turn, helped pull near-term inflation expectations down and put pressure on the U.S. dollar.
Then Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz down again, blaming the U.S. blockade. Trump has not been pleased about the latest situation, particularly the reports of Iran firing at commercial vessels, and he released a warning on Truth Social Sunday. Trump insists Iran did not close the waterway, stressing it was really the U.S. blockade.
“Iran recently announced that they were closing the Strait, which is strange, because our BLOCKADE has already closed it. They’re helping us without knowing,” Trump claimed.
The unsettled debate concerning the Strait and weaker dollar has made dollar-denominated gold less expensive for buyers holding other currencies, which tends to lift demand. International buyers responded accordingly on Friday with the soft dollar and volatility on hand.
Federal Reserve signals also fed into the U.S. dollar’s latest retreat. Markets continued pricing in rate-cut expectations while watching upcoming U.S. economic data, including retail sales figures and purchasing managers index readings.
Amid the uncertainty in the Middle East, gold extended its gains through Friday rather than pulling back. Traders weighed the truce against continued risk in the region, and safe-haven demand held.
Of course, gold bug and economist, Peter Schiff, believes the “best asset to buy is gold” during these times. Schiff noted on X, before Iran shut the Strait down again, that “even if peace talks fail and the war resumes, eventually gold will break from the trend of falling when war escalates and rise no matter what.”
The fourth consecutive weekly gain placed gold firmly in an established uptrend on longer timeframes, though the weekend session has shown standard consolidation behavior typical of thin liquidity conditions. For now, gold enters the new week with Trump’s latest warning and the uncertainty tied to the Middle East waterway.