Gold nears record high ahead of US jobs report | Check today's rates

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Gold headed for a third weekly gain, ahead of a US jobs report that may reinforce bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates later this month.

Both gold and silver have more than doubled over the past three years, with mounting risks in geopolitics, the economy and global trade driving have demand. (Pixabay/Representative Image)

Bullion traded near $3,550 an ounce, having slipped from an all-time high of $3,578.51 an ounce reached Wednesday — when a drop in job openings spurred markets to almost fully price in a September rate reduction. Lower borrowing costs tend to boost the appeal of non-yielding gold, which has also seen support from strong haven demand amid concerns over the US central bank’s future.

Investors are now bracing for a pivotal US payrolls report on Friday, which is expected to extend the weakest stretch of US job growth since the pandemic. That would add to signs of a softening labor market, with Treasury yields declining to the lowest levels in several months following data on Thursday that showed US jobless claims rose to the highest since June.

While technical measures show gold reached overbought levels this week, the metal is still up by more than a third this year — making it one of the best-performing major commodities. The latest run higher came after Fed Chair Jerome Powell last month cautiously opened the door to a cut.

Both gold and silver have more than doubled over the past three years, with mounting risks in geopolitics, the economy and global trade driving have demand. An escalation in President Donald Trump’s attacks against the Fed this year has increased worries over the central bank’s independence, as the president has vowed to gain a “majority, very shortly” on the central bank and bring down rates.

Still, some of those concerns were allayed after Stephen Miran — whom Trump has picked to fill a vacant seat on the Fed’s Board of Governors — on Thursday told a Senate confirmation hearing that the central bank’s most important job is preventing depressions and hyperinflation. He also reiterated his commitment to central bank independence, even as he acknowledged he would retain his White House job.

Investors are also still waiting for a landmark ruling on whether Trump has legitimate grounds to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook, which could allow the president to replace her with a dovish-leaning official. On that theme, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts wrote in a note this week that gold could rally to almost $5,000 an ounce if the Fed’s independence were damaged and investors shifted just a small portion of holdings from Treasuries into bullion.

Meanwhile, silver’s performance this year has been even more impressive, with prices up more than 40%. On Monday, it breached $40 an ounce for the first time since 2011. The metal is valued both as a financial asset and for its industrial uses in clean-energy technologies, including solar panels. Against that backdrop, the market is headed for a fifth year of deficits, according to the Silver Institute.

Investors have piled into silver-backed exchange-traded funds, with holdings expanding for a seventh consecutive month in August. That’s drawn down stockpiles of freely available metal in London, leading to persistent tightness in the market. Lease rates — which reflect the cost of borrowing metal, generally for a short period of time — surged to more than 5% this week, well above their normal levels of close to zero.

Spot gold climbed 0.2% to $3,553.09 an ounce as of 7:32 a.m. in London, putting it on track for a 3% gain this week, the most since mid-June. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was down 0.2%, and is up 0.3% since Monday. Silver rose 0.6% to $40.90 an ounce after falling 1.3% on Thursday, while platinum and palladium also climbed.

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