Wall Street nearly full bull after supportive data and chaotic geopolitics, Main Street maintains bullish bias after gold reclaims $4,500/oz

NEW YORK (January 9) While the yellow metal saw dips along the way, the momentum was steadily higher throughout the first full week of trading in 2026, and a bullish market now sees gold standing on the threshold of last month’s all-time highs.

Spot gold kicked off the week trading at $4370 per ounce, and the yellow metal wasted no time reclaiming the $4,400 per ounce level just two hours after trading began on Sunday evening. Gold traded just shy of $4,440 in the early morning, and after a quick dip down to retest support at $4,400 just before 8:15 a.m. on Monday morning, prices quickly established a near-term top at $4450 per ounce. 

Monday evening saw Asia pick up where North America left off, driving spot gold all the way to $4,470 per ounce just after midnight. Then Tuesday's North American open quickly propelled gold to the edge of $4,490, and by 6:00 p.m. the yellow metal had topped out just shy of $4,500 per ounce.

Gold then saw its first meaningful pullback of the week, with the yellow metal dipping down to $4,444 just before 2:00 a.m., and falling as low as $4,426 half an hour after Wednesday's North American open. But while gold prices couldn't break above $4,470 on Wednesday or early Thursday, the dips never came close to $4,400 support either. 

On Thursday afternoon, as the North American session was trading into the close, spot gold finally broke above $4,470 per ounce, and while it only pushed around $8 above the level, the higher range had been established; gold traded no lower than $4,465 overnight as markets braced for December's nonfarm payrolls report.

The employment data was in line with forecasts, but that was enough to confirm the market’s marginally bullish bias on the Fed's rate cut path, which quickly propelled gold through the $4,500 per ounce level by 10:15 a.m. and following a brief dip down to support at $4,485, the market was content to trade on both sides of $4,500 heading into the weekend.

The latest Kitco News Weekly Gold Survey showed Wall Street with a near-total bullish consensus on gold’s near-term prospects, while Main Street investors maintained their bullish majority bias.

“Up,” said Darin Newsom, senior market analyst at Barchart.com. “Based on Newton’s first law of motion applied to markets: A trending market will stay in that trend until acted upon by an outside force. I don’t see a change coming from outside forces, most notably investor and central bank buying interest.”

“Up,” said Rich Checkan, president and COO of Asset Strategies International. “The calendar changed from 2025 to 2026… but the market fundamentals have not changed. Central banks are still buying. Tensions are still elevated in Ukraine, Gaza, and Venezuela. Fiat currencies are still mismanaged by fiscally irresponsible politicians. The U.S. dollar is still weak. Interest rates are still low. Investors are seeking gold as a safe haven.”

“Up,” said James Stanley, senior market strategist at Forex.com. “I think the $4500 level could be a hurdle for bulls, but at this point, they’ve so far supported pullbacks, so I see no evidence yet that the current run is over. I’m going to lean with the trend until evidence suggests otherwise.”

Adam Button, head of currency strategy at Forexlive.com, said the breakdown of international laws and norms that we’ve seen in the early part of 2026 will have profound effects on the U.S. dollar and gold.

“If I look back over the last few weeks, precious metals were on the front pages just after Christmas, because of that Boxing Day pop in silver,” he said. “I think that made a lot of people nervous that we'd gone too far, too fast. Then you saw a bit of a pullback; I think that shook some people out afterwards and into this week.”

“But you go into the New Year, and you've got America abducting foreign presidents, talking about taking Cuba, Iran, elsewhere, [talking about] bombing Mexico, using Venezuelan oil money however they see fit, when they see fit.”

Button said that while each of these is significant in its own right, Greenland is the big one.

“Denmark has about $90 billion of foreign currency reserves, and they don't disclose what's in what, but safe to assume half of that's in U.S. dollars,” he said. “If you're Denmark, the Danish Central Bank, do you want to be holding U.S. dollar reserves headed into some kind of confrontation over Greenland? Even in negotiations, you wouldn't want to be vulnerable to America threatening to seize your reserves. Trump likes to take these maximalist positions, and [the Biden administration] seized Russian reserves.”

“Then what about the rest of Europe?” he added. “I think Trump has shown again, to start this year, that he's willing to violate international norms and laws. And the talk from the administration is about naked pillaging, internationally, of allies.”

Button said that under these circumstances, the entire world order is at risk – and the US dollar is at the center of the world order.

“There's nowhere for the U.S. dollar to go, but to a place where it's less at the center of the international system,” he said. “Why on earth would China and Iran be trading in U.S. dollars? Why would China be trading with anyone using U.S. dollars that it doesn't have to? This Trump administration has been a series of wake-up calls around reasons to diversify reserve holdings.”

Button also believes the impending Supreme Court decision on Trump’s tariff authority will be a big moment for gold.

“The way I’d frame it is, do we have checks and balances?” he said. “If the Supreme Court will endorse emergency fentanyl tariffs against Canada, then it will rubber stamp anything. And I think in terms of gold, there's no real need for any more nuance than that. The question really is, has the Supreme Court been captured as an arm of the administration? Or is it a separate, sober constitutional authority?”

“The answer to that question is a $500 move in gold.”

This week, 16 analysts participated in the Kitco News Gold Survey, with Wall Street experts overwhelmingly bullish on gold’s near-term prospects. 14 experts, or 88%, expect to see gold prices rise higher during the week ahead – which would quickly challenge December’s all-time highs. Only one, representing 6%, predicted a price decline, with one other expecting the yellow metal to trade sideways next week.

Meanwhile, 268 votes were cast in Kitco’s online poll, with Main Street investors’ bullish sentiment holding steady at their recent elevated levels. 184 retail traders, or 69%, looked for gold prices to rise higher next week, while another 44, or 16%, predicted the yellow metal would lose ground. The remaining 40 investors, representing 15% of the total, expected prices to consolidate during the week ahead.

Next week's economic news calendar features key inflation and housing data, along with regional manufacturing surveys.

On Tuesday, markets will receive the U.S. CPI report for December, along with New Home Sales figures for September and October. Then, Wednesday will see the release of U.S. PPI for October and November, as well as November Retail Sales and Existing Home Sales for December.

The economic news week wraps up on Thursday morning with weekly jobless claims, as well as the Empire State and Philly Fed Manufacturing Surveys.

“Gold looks constructive, but so does the dollar,” said Marc Chandler, managing director at Bannockburn Global Forex. “The record high set on Boxing Day (Dec 26) was slightly shy of $4550. That is the nearby target after support ahead of $4400 held last week.”

“Geopolitics, central bank purchases, and retail buying remain the key drivers,” Chandler added. “The five-day moving average remains above the 20-day and the momentum indicators look constructive.”

Sean Lusk, co-director of commercial hedging at Walsh Trading, was sifting through gold’s various economic and geopolitical; drivers to determine what the precious metals market was really trading on.

“They ran up the metals in the first part of this week, then they backed them off into the unemployment report, we saw a drop yesterday,” he said. “Obviously, some geopolitical things have hit the wires. But it's just the same old; even a higher dollar today isn't impeding any rally in the metals.”

“Now you're getting seasonality coming in, Christmas to Valentine's Day, it's one of the best performing times of the year for the metals, although last year threw that out because they rallied all year,” Lusk said. “But now you have things flaring up all over the world geopolitically, and nobody's going to go home short [gold] this weekend. You’ve got potential for an overthrow of the mullahs in Iran. You saw what happened to Maduro in Venezuela. Cuba could be next up. We had a dramatic attack in Ukraine last night, that's not going away. In fact, the President signed bipartisan legislation to sanction Russia more.”

“And with this money-printing crusade that you'd anticipate we're going to be on again, at least for the first six months of this year, until we get changes to the Fed, the algos just buy any dips they can.”

Turning to the economic data, Lusk said that while it hasn’t all been great, there’s been nothing bad enough to derail dovish rate expectations or rein in investor sentiment.

“I think it's just more of a continuation of what you saw during the holidays,” he said. “I don't think the full amount of volume is back in the trade. It's increased this week from where we were in the holidays, but sometimes it takes until the second full week of January until you get everybody back and you get some moves here as you get data.”

“But there really isn't anything new in the data that's going to give thoughts of any kind of slowdown in the Fed’s more dovish policy,” he added. “Nothing's inhibiting that.”

Lusk said the metals remain the flavor in markets. “You're probably going to have another run up into the first quarter this year, and then we'll see where we're at,” he said. “I think there's going to be a hell of an opportunity to get short the metals on the back half of this year as you get some shift changes in Congress, most likely in the midterm elections.”

But the midterms are a way down the road, he noted, while the major upheaval to the world order is happening right now. “You’ve got these oppressive regimes, the potential that they get knocked off one after the other,” he said. “You're just not going to sell gold on that uncertainty, at least not into the weekend.”

“I personally think a lot of this is overdone, no doubt about it,” Lusk added. “I think a lot of people do. But it doesn't mean you stand in front of a freight train either. There's also a lot of money sitting on the sidelines here that hasn't joined this rally.”

“Nobody's overthinking anything here, as far as where they're putting the dough, where the flow is going,” he said, “We can argue and piss and moan all we want, but the fact remains, you're at 7,000 in the S&P, you might be 50,000 in the Dow real soon, you're at 49,774. And you're almost at 26,000 in the Nasdaq. So gold's at $4,500 and silver is just a hair under $80.”

Analysts at CPM Group issued a sell recommendation after Thursday’s close, with an initial target price of $4,385 per ounce and a stop loss at $4,525 and a timeframe between January 9-20, 2026.

“Gold and other precious metals continue to experience volatile trading and price moves,” they wrote. “Investors remain concerned about the political and economic environment. While many investors and others have posted large profits being long over the past few months, there is growing concern about a short-term round of profit taking pushing prices lower briefly.”

“Longer term, into late January and the rest of the first quarter, prices seem more likely to rise, as the risks in the political and economic environment remain highly unresolved,” the analysts added. “First, however, there may be a round of short-term selling.”

Michael Moor, founder of Moor Analytics, believes gold will continue to trend upward next week.

“In a Higher time frame:  I cautioned on 8/16/18, the break above $1,179.7-$1,183. warned of renewed strength,” he said. “We have seen $3,400.3. This is OFF HOLD. On a Medium time frame: The break above 31482 brought in $1,435.8 of strength. The trade above 32214 brought in $1,362.6 of strength. The trade above 32236 brought in $1,360.4 of strength. The trade above 32392 projected this up $115 (+)—we attained $1,344.8. The trade above 33411 brought in $1,242.9 of strength. The trade above 33850 brought in $1,199.0 of strength. The trade above 34186 brought in $1,165.4 of strength. The break above 35640 brought in $1,020.0 of strength. The trade above 36658 brought in $918.2 of strength. The trade above 37143 brought in $869.7 of strength. The break above 37725 brought in $811.5 of strength. The trade above 38828 brought in $701.2 of strength. These are OFF HOLD.”

“On a Lower time frame: The trade above 39732 brought in $610.8 of strength,” Moor added. “The trade above 40701 brought in $513.9. The trade above 41738 brought in $410.2. The trade above 42758 brought in $308.2. These are OFF HOLD. Decent trade below 44388 (+10 per/hour starting at 6:00am) will project this down $90 minimum, $135 (+) maximum (based off a steep formation).”

And Kitco senior analyst Jim Wyckoff said confident bulls continue to step in and buy the dips amid still-elevated risk aversion in the marketplace, which is prompting safe-haven demand for the precious metals on Friday.

“Technically, February gold futures bulls’ next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at the contract/record high of $4,584.00,” he said. “Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $4,284.30. First resistance is seen at $4,500.00 and then at this week’s high of $4,512.40. First support is seen at $4,415.00 and then at $4,400.00.”

At the time of writing, spot gold last traded at $4,510.10 per ounce for a gain of 4.25% on the week and 0.73% on the day.

KitcoNews