Matthew Bolden
4 min read
Happy Friday, traders. Welcome to our weekly market wrap, where we take a look back at these last few 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.
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Gold fell to a weekly low of $3,260/oz after a court ruled against the Trump Administration’s tariff authority.
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A Federal appeals court later paused that ruling, triggering a rebound in gold prices.
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The US Dollar’s volatile response to legal and policy shifts played a key role in gold’s movement.
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Gold ended the week near $3,300/oz ahead of key June economic data releases.
Similar to last, this holiday-truncated week of gold trading has largely been dictated by investors’ and traders’ reactions to US fiscal policy headlines, with two notable differences: the market-moving headlines this week have almost all been tied to the latest tumult around the high-impact Trump Tariffs, and not so much relating to budget votes and negotiations in Washington; and the reaction in gold prices to tariff news has flowed through the US Dollar’s pricing.
Coming out of Monday’s Memorial Day market holiday, Tuesday’s overnight opens cut a deep sell-off into gold spot markets from $3340/oz to roughly $3310. Through Tuesday’s trading and the first half of Wednesday in New York, gold maintained a steady enough level of interest from traders to hold at or just below the $3300 level, but precious few higher bids.
With a mostly quiet macroeconomic data calendar on offer this week, it looked possible that (having moved past an unremarkable release of FOMC meeting minutes) the yellow metal might just linger at that level all week.
Trading and price volatility in multiple asset classes, including gold, surged on Wednesday afternoon, however, as news broke of the US Court of International Trade announcing a decision that the Trump Administration does not have authority within the US Constitution to enact the majority of tariffs it has announced and/or threatened against trading partners large and small.
One marked impact of this announcement was a climb in the US dollar, slow at first and then sharp, which sent gold spot prices sliding in the other direction. By the US market close on Wednesday evening (also just before the first opening bells for Asia’s Thursday sessions,) the precious metal had fallen to the weekly low at $3260/oz in spot markets, from which it began to rebound with support.
