Gold shot above $4,800 per ounce on Wednesday, surging more than 3% after President Trump announced a conditional two-week ceasefire with Iran.
Spot gold briefly topped $4,850 in heavy trading before settling back around $4,786 by 10:50 GMT – one of the sharpest single-day moves in weeks and a sign that buyers remain firmly in control.
Fears of immediate escalation – which had kept a risk premium baked into everything from oil to safe-haven assets – eased sharply, yet gold still pushed higher rather than selling off.
The metal has spent much of the past two months caught between geopolitical tensions and higher oil prices stoking inflation fears that lifted the dollar and Treasury yields.
Going into Wednesday’s session, the key technical barrier had been the $4,720 area – the declining 20-day moving average that had capped several recovery attempts. Gold smashed through that convincingly, with futures reaching as high as $4,834 before cooling. Traders will now be watching the $4,870 region, and beyond that the psychologically significant $5,000 mark.
The FOMC minutes, also released today, add another layer. Markets had been bracing for a data-heavy week, with GDP figures and the core PCE inflation index still to come on Thursday. With no rate cut expected at the April meeting, any sign of a more cautious Fed tone is supportive for bullion – and with March’s jobs figures having been quietly revised to strip out 400,000 positions from earlier estimates, the debate about how strong the economy really is has sharpened considerably.
The longer-term picture remains bullish. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs both see prices near $5,000 or higher later this year, and gold is now up more than 50% compared to twelve months ago – a run that has survived a bruising 10% selloff through March and multiple bouts of dollar strength.