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:
- Gold briefly pushed above $4,500/oz on Friday but failed to hold, then traded in a tighter band with support staying above $4,400.
- A stronger-than-expected ISM services reading midweek was interpreted as a sign of economic resilience, fueling profit-taking and pulling gold down toward $4,440/oz by Thursday.
- Friday’s December Jobs Report disappointed, restoring rate-cut speculation and drawing buyers back into the midweek dip, pushing gold back within reach of $4,500.
- Next week’s CPI report and returning Fed commentary will be the first major test of whether this pattern continues.
So, What Kind of a Week Has it Been?
Gold prices have had some moderate up-and-down this week. For several weeks, there seemed to be a lack of any technical resistance in the gold chart, but now we see signs of it at the $4500/oz level, which spot prices briefly ticked above on Friday, unable to grab a toe-hold.
The yellow metal then traded in a neat $100 range this week, with clear support above $4400 after the chart crossed above the same mark in Monday’s trading.
A Light Calendar, Quiet Fed, and No New Geopolitical Catalyst
This week’s macro-data calendar has been light, the Fed has been relatively quiet coming out of the holiday season, and the geopolitical tumult that has provided such a tailwind has dominated the news cycles but not brought anything newly actionable to the fore.
Midweek Surprise: ISM Services Comes In Hot
One mild surprise came on Wednesday morning, when the ISM survey data on the state of the US’ service sector in December printed notably higher than expectations, putting some distance between the current assessment and the 50.0 breakeven that marks expansion vs. contraction.
Interestingly, even on the heels of a slightly worse-than-expected evaluation of the manufacturing sector that printed on Monday, the market appeared to interpret this as a meaningful indication of economic health at the end of the year, possibly to the extent that the Federal Reserve may be pushed farther towards holding off on the next loosing of monetary policy (via interest rate cut) until later in 2026.
Logical or otherwise, the next leap investors seemed to take was an inference that Friday’s more meaningful labor market data might look similarly rosy and have more of a hawkish effect on the Dollar’s central bankers. As a result, Wednesday’s gold market saw a lot of movement, which looked like profit-taking.
Though certainly not to the degree that we saw in December, the downward pressure was enough to drag gold prices down $4440/oz by Thursday, from Tuesday’s high of $4495.
Jobs Report Disappoints, Buyers Step Back In
In reality, the December Jobs Report—at least the headlining NFP number—was another letdown. The total number of jobs added to the US economy at the tail of 2025 came in at +50,000, below an already anemic projection for +60K and paired with a roughly -20% revision downward to the November numbers.
As we would expect based on historical reference, traders and investors stepped quickly back into the $50/oz gap created by the midweek sell-off for gold, driven both by the signal of uncertainty about US labor market stability, as well as the implication that the Fed may now be more pressed to consider cutting rates again sooner in order to relieve pressure.
In fairly short order, since the Jobs Report was released on Friday morning, spot prices are already back within touching distance of $4500.
Looking Ahead: CPI and Returning Fed Commentary
A key test of this pattern comes early next week, with Tuesday’s release of new consumer inflation numbers for December 2025 and presumably an influx of commentary from Fed officials on the many changes in and around the market environment that have borne out over the quiet holidays.
In the meantime, traders, I hope you can get out and safely enjoy your weekend for the next couple of days. After that, I’ll see you back here next week for another market recap.
