Comex gold finished last week at $4,133.70 an ounce, down $154.10, or 3.59 percent — the largest weekly drop since the week ending June 5. A soft jobs report on Friday barely registered.
Dow Jones Market Data put the two-week decline at $252.20, or 5.75 percent, the steepest such stretch since mid-June. The metal has now fallen in five of the past six weeks and settled at its lowest level since August 4. It is 22.28 percent below the record $5,318.40 hit on January 29 and down 4.44 percent year to date. Spot quotes into the weekend clustered near $4,140 to $4,170. Australian gold miners were little changed Monday after the metal capped its biggest weekly loss since June.
The driver was the bond market, not a sudden outbreak of calm. The 10-year Treasury yield closed Friday around 5.28 percent after briefly slipping below 5.17 percent on the 29,000-job print. Higher yields raise the opportunity cost of holding a metal that pays nothing. A firmer dollar and lingering oil risk added weight. Bullion that spent 2026 as a hedge against war and rate shock is now being marked as a duration trade: when the long end stays near two-decade highs, gold gives the yield back.
The second-order message is for the people who bought the metal as insurance against the same fiscal arithmetic that is lifting Treasury yields. If deficits keep the 10-year pinned above 5 percent, gold does not automatically rally with the fear. It competes with a coupon. Friday’s payroll miss cut October hike odds. It did not put $5,300 back on the board. The next test is the Federal Reserve’s September minutes on Wednesday, and whether 5.28 percent was a ceiling or a floor.
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