Gold futures rose sharply on Friday, helping the commodity post its third straight weekly gain, as choppy stock markets, a sluggish US dollar, and swiftly falling rates proved a bullish combination for metal. August gold GCQ21, +0.61 percent GC00, +0.61 percent settled $10.40, or 0.6 percent, higher at $1,810.60 an ounce, representing a weekly gain of 1.53 percent based on last Friday’s closing level. The weekly advance was the metal’s third in a row and its biggest since the week ended May 21, according to FactSet data, indicating that the yellow metal is in an uptrend. Earlier this week, a so-called golden cross appeared on gold’s chart. The main driver of gold’s increase was most likely a weaker dollar. The dollar DXY, -0.29% fell 0.2 percent on Friday, bringing the week’s performance to a halt. When the dollar falls in value, assets priced in the currency become more expensive to buyers who use other currencies. A bond rally, which dropped long-dated rates, like the 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.351 percent and the 30-year bond TMUBMUSD30Y, 1.984 percent, to lows not seen since February, lowered the opportunity cost of owning nonyielding gold over bonds. The optimistic sentiment in haven gold came as the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.28 percent, the S&P 500 index SPX, +1.08 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.92 percent all recovered from Thursday’s yield-driven selloff./n
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