Gold Rockets Past $4,300 as Investors Pile into Havens — Biggest Weekly Pop Since ’08

With input from the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Bloomberg.

Gold just can’t stop. The metal blasted through $4,300 an ounce on Friday and is on track for its fattest weekly gain since the chaos of late 2008. As of 09:29 GMT, spot gold was up 0.2% at $4,335.87 after tagging a fresh record at $4,378.69. December futures added about 1% to $4,348.90. For the week? Roughly +8.1%.

What’s driving it: a cocktail of jitters and lower-rate dreams. Geopolitical flare-ups, fresh credit worries at US regional lenders, and rising bets on more Fed cuts have traders reaching for the classic safe haven. Fed Governor Christopher Waller backed another reduction, and markets are leaning toward a quarter-point cut at the Oct. 29–30 meeting with another penciled in for December.

The mood isn’t helped by US–China tensions. Beijing accused Washington of sparking global panic over rare-earths controls and rebuffed pressure to reverse export curbs — another nudge toward seek-shelter trades.

Under the hood, momentum is sizzling: gold’s RSI sits near 88 — textbook “overbought” — prompting some pros to warn of a breather even as they stay constructive.

“Rate-cut hopes, geopolitics, and lingering banking concerns keep the backdrop very friendly for bullion,” said Alexander Zumpfe at Heraeus, while noting a short-term cool-off wouldn’t shock.

Silver is along for the ride. The white metal punched up to a record $54.47/oz before easing to around $53.96 — still set for a ~7.3% weekly gain, aided by a spot-market squeeze. Platinum and palladium slipped on the day but are chalking up solid weekly advances.

Flows are confirming the frenzy. SPDR Gold Trust holdings climbed to 1,034.62 tonnes on Thursday — the highest since July 2022 — underscoring robust ETF demand on top of central-bank buying and de-dollarisation chatter.

Big picture: gold is up roughly two-thirds this year as investors hedge inflation, politics, and growth scares in a falling-rate world. The immediate catalysts may ebb, and hardware-fast rallies can swing hard, but for now the path of least resistance is still up — and glittering.