Gold Rose Almost 5% in the Week of the Midterms. What Did the Jobs Report Change?

Spot gold rose 4.89% in the week to 6 November 2026, to US$4,065.04 on our daily series, most of it the day after Democrats won both chambers of Congress, and it held through the worst day for US stocks since April 2025. Friday’s jobs report, 165,000 jobs against 65,000 expected, lifted the odds of a December Fed rise, and the dollar index rose 0.74% that day. Our Tactical Macro Conditions Score ended the week at 44/100, Cautious.

Published November 7, 2026 · 14 min read

Key Takeaways

• Spot gold closed at US$4,065.04 on 6 November 2026, up 4.89% on the week from US$3,875.44 on 30 October, when Reuters put gold at a one-year low, and silver rose 5.88% to US$52.0165, on Investing.com’s daily history. Wednesday, the day after the midterm elections, gave 3.35%.
• On Wednesday the 10-year real yield fell only 1 basis point and the dollar index 0.29%, while Brent crude fell 8.7%; prices alone cannot say how much of the rise each caused. Over the week the real yield ended 3 basis points higher, at 2.63%.
• On Thursday the S&P 500 fell 4.4%, its worst day since April 2025, on worries about spending on AI data centres, and gold still rose 0.68%.
• October payrolls rose 165,000 against 65,000 in a Reuters poll, unemployment was 4.1% and hourly earnings were up 3.1% on the year. The FedWatch odds of a December rise went to 85% and then about 78%, by Reuters’ readings; on Friday gold fell 0.55% and the dollar index rose 0.74%.
• Our recorded Tactical Score was 44/100, Cautious, on 6 November, from 45 on 30 October: core levels 16, momentum 17, fiscal stress 5, confirmation basket 6. Friday’s rise in the dollar took three points from the core block.

Gold rose almost 5% in the week the United States voted. Spot gold closed on Friday 6 November 2026 at US$4,065.04 on Investing.com’s daily history, 4.89% above its close of US$3,875.44 on Friday 30 October, the day Reuters put gold at a one-year low; on Friday morning Reuters reported it on course for its strongest week in more than two months. Most of the rise came on Wednesday, the day after Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections. Gold rose again on Thursday, when US stocks had their worst day since April 2025, and fell 0.55% on Friday after the October jobs report showed 165,000 jobs added, far more than economists had expected. Prices are in US dollars and metals are per troy ounce.

+4.89% Spot gold over the week to Friday 6 November 2026, from US$3,875.44 to US$4,065.04 (Investing.com daily history). Silver rose 5.88% to US$52.0165. Wednesday, the day after the vote, did most of the work: gold rose 3.35% that day. Friday’s fall of 0.55% followed a jobs report that beat the forecast in a Reuters poll of economists by 100,000.

What did the week’s markets show?

Gold rose almost 5% over the week and silver almost 6%, while the dollar index ended a little higher, the 10-year Treasury yield lower and US stocks lower. Gold’s rise came with falls in the ordinary Treasury yields and in oil, and it held through Thursday’s fall in stocks; the 10-year real yield ended the week 3 basis points higher. The dollar index was 0.32% lower by Thursday’s close and rose 0.74% on Friday.

What happened to gold each day?

Gold rose on three of the five days, and Wednesday, the day after the vote, did most of the work. The table sets each day’s close beside the dollar and the two Treasury yields most often compared with gold.

On Monday gold recovered part of the previous Friday’s fall, closing up 1.86% at US$3,947.67. Reuters linked the rise to a fall of more than 6% in oil prices, after Iran and Qatar held a third consecutive day of talks aimed at ending the US–Israeli war on Iran, which eased worries about inflation. Gold’s 14-day relative strength index, a gauge of how stretched a move has become, rose to about 37 from below 30 on Friday, Reuters noted; below 30 is the zone usually read as oversold.

On Tuesday, election day, gold slipped 0.49% to US$3,928.50 as the 10-year Treasury yield rose 4 basis points and the dollar index edged up. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 7.52 million job openings at the end of September, up from 7.19 million in August. The bureau itself called the number little changed. The World Gold Council also published its third-quarter figures that day, which we covered in our article on who bought gold in the third quarter.

By Wednesday morning Democrats had won control of both chambers of Congress, returning the party to full control for the first time since 2023, NPR reported; the Associated Press had called the Senate for the Democrats late on Tuesday night, Eastern time. Gold rose 3.35% to US$4,060.02, which Reuters called its sharpest daily rise since 19 August, and silver 4.91% to US$52.2235. The dollar index fell 0.29% and the 10-year Treasury yield 5 basis points, to 4.90%. Brent crude fell 8.7% to US$94.62 a barrel, the Associated Press reported, as investors weighed whether a Democratic Congress would press for an end to the war with Iran, and the S&P 500 rose 1.6%. What the World Gold Council’s own research says about whether gold has found a floor is in our article of 5 November.

On Thursday gold added 0.68% to US$4,087.71 on a day when US stocks fell hard. The S&P 500 fell 4.4%, its worst day since April 2025, and the Nasdaq composite 5.5%, led by companies tied to the building of data centres for artificial intelligence, the Associated Press reported; Reuters reported worries that Democratic gains in Congress and state governments could bring curbs on data-centre construction. Spot gold had reached US$4,146.63 during the session, its highest since 20 October, Reuters reported. Treasury yields fell again: the 10-year by 6 basis points to 4.84% and the 2-year by 12 basis points to 4.46%. Silver fell 0.88%, and Brent recovered 3.9% to US$98.29, the Associated Press reported.

On Friday gold slipped 0.55% to US$4,065.04 and silver rose 0.49%, while the dollar index rose 0.74% to 102.30, its largest move of the week; Reuters reported the dollar already gaining before the jobs report, on safe-haven demand as the sell-off in AI shares spread to Asia and Europe. Before the release Reuters put spot gold at US$4,070.59 at 11:24 GMT, down 0.4%, and Giovanni Staunovo of UBS told Reuters there was an “extremely strong correlation” between oil prices, inflation and gold. Shortly after the release Kitco News put spot gold at US$4,046, down 1% on the day. Treasury yields rose, the 2-year by 5 basis points to 4.51% and the 10-year by 2 to 4.86%, and US stocks steadied, the S&P 500 rising 0.3% and the Nasdaq 1.1%, the Associated Press reported.

Did the election move gold, or did yields and the dollar?

The usual explanations moved in gold’s favour on Wednesday, but not by enough to account for a 3.35% rise on their own. The 10-year real yield, the return an investor gives up by holding gold instead of an inflation-protected Treasury bond, slipped just 1 basis point, from 2.65% to 2.64%. Most of the 5-basis-point fall in the ordinary 10-year yield was a fall in the gap between the two, often read as the inflation rate the bond market expects, which narrowed from 2.30 to 2.26 percentage points on a day when oil fell. A 0.29% fall in the dollar index is also small beside the move in gold.

That leaves room for the explanations offered before and after the vote. Before it, Fawad Razaqzada of Forex.com told Reuters that a Democratic clean sweep could weigh on the dollar by making it harder for the administration to pass laws, including measures on the debt ceiling. On the other side, Carsten Menke of Julius Baer told Reuters on Monday that US deficits should persist whatever the outcome. On Thursday Ole Hansen of Saxo Bank told Reuters that falling energy prices, easing worries about inflation and interest rates, and lower Treasury yields and a weaker dollar had together forced traders who had recently bet on lower gold prices to buy back. Gold had also fallen hard into the week, and on the previous Friday it had been oversold on the measure above.

Over the whole week the real yield did not help gold. It was 2.60% on 30 October, 2.60% again on Thursday and 2.63% on Friday, so gold rose almost 5% while the real yield ended 3 basis points higher. The ordinary 10-year yield fell 8 basis points, while the gap between the two narrowed by 11, from 2.34 to 2.23 percentage points, in a week when oil fell. In the three weeks to 30 October the real yield fell and gold fell with it, as our previous review set out; in this fourth week the two again moved the same way, both higher, though the real yield barely moved. Our reading is that Wednesday’s rise coincided with the election result and with lower oil, a lower dollar and lower yields, and prices alone cannot say how much of it each one caused. One week says little about what divided government will mean for gold over the rest of the President’s term.

What did the US data say before the jobs report?

The week’s US data described an economy still growing, with price pressure easing a little but still high. Factory and service-sector surveys both stayed above 50, the level above which the Institute for Supply Management reads its sector as growing, and both surveys’ prices indexes, though still far above 50, were lower than in September.

Thursday’s productivity figures pointed to easing cost pressure. Output per hour in the non-farm business sector grew at an annual rate of 3.6% in the third quarter, as output rose 3.7% and hours worked 0.1%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Hourly compensation rose at a 2.9% rate, slower than productivity, so unit labour costs, which the bureau calculates as the ratio of the two, fell at a 0.7% rate. Over four quarters unit labour costs were still 2.4% higher. The bureau also revised the second quarter up, to productivity growth of 2.1% and a rise in unit labour costs of 1.9%.

What did the jobs report show?

The October jobs report was stronger than expected on payrolls, unemployment and wages. Employers added 165,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, against 65,000 forecast in a Reuters poll of economists, and the bureau revised August and September up by a combined 84,000. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% from 4.2%; the bureau called the change little changed, and the rate has stayed between 4.1% and 4.3% since March. Average hourly earnings rose 14 cents, or 0.4%, to US$38.00, and were 3.1% higher than a year earlier; the Reuters poll had expected 2.9%.

Markets read the report as keeping a December rate rise in play. By Reuters’ readings of CME Group’s FedWatch tool, the chance of a rise at the 8–9 December meeting jumped to 85% shortly after the release and then settled at about 78%, up from 70% before it. “The labor market’s resilience keeps the Fed focused on inflation,” Olu Sonola of Fitch Ratings wrote, Reuters reported. Tighter policy raises what Reuters calls the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion, and gold ended the day 0.55% lower, a smaller fall than Kitco’s reading just after the release.

Did the election change the odds of a December rate rise?

The election does not set interest rates; the Federal Reserve does, and its next decision is due at the end of its meeting on 8–9 December. In the readings Reuters reported from CME Group’s FedWatch tool, the futures market’s odds of a quarter-point rise moved more after Thursday’s fall in stocks and Friday’s jobs report than in the days around the vote.

Reuters reported that the fall in technology shares on Thursday led traders to scale back their bets on a December rise, on the reasoning that slower AI spending could cool growth and inflation, and that Friday’s jobs report brought a rise back into focus. Two Fed officials backed small, steady rate rises on Thursday, Reuters reported, and on Friday St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said inflation remained the top concern of businesses in his district. These are the views of officials and traders, not a forecast of ours.

Another central bank did raise rates this week. The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee voted 8–1, at its meeting ending on 4 November, to raise Bank Rate by a quarter point to 4%, with Catherine Mann preferring a half-point rise to 4.25%, the Bank said when it published the decision on 5 November. It said UK consumer price inflation rose to 3.5% in September and is now expected to rise to around 5% by the middle of next year, as the conflict in the Middle East keeps energy prices high, and that monetary policy is not on a pre-set path.

Where did our Tactical Score end the week?

The recorded Tactical Score for Friday 6 November was 44/100, in the Cautious band, one point below the 45/100 of 30 October, with its direction indicator at Stable. The score is the dashboard’s stored Engine V2 run of about 20:00 UTC that day, and nothing here was recalculated or adjusted to fit the week’s headlines. In between it read 50, 45, 49 and 47, so it was in the Neutral band on three of the week’s five runs. The Macro Conditions Score reflects macro conditions historically associated with precious metals performance. It did not predict the week’s rise, and a reading is not a signal to buy or sell.

Three of the four blocks moved. The core levels fell from 19 to 16 of their 50 points, all of it in the dollar input, which fell from 5 to 2 of 10: the engine measures the dollar index’s change over 13 weeks, and Friday’s rise took that change to 2.5%, past the 2% line beyond which the engine scores a stronger dollar as a headwind. Momentum rose from 16 to 17 of its 30 points. The confirmation basket rose from 5 to 6 of 10, on 14 raw points against 13, because credit spreads added a point. The fiscal and Treasury stress block stayed at 5 of 10.

The direction indicator changed from Improving to Stable at this run. The direction index was +0.11, inside the band from minus 0.20 to plus 0.20 that the engine reads as Stable; it had also been inside that band at Thursday’s run, and the engine changes state only when the same new state appears at two consecutive runs. The positive components were real yields and the 2-year yield, the engine’s proxy for repricing of the Federal Reserve’s path, both measured to 4 November, while inflation expectations and the dollar pulled the other way.

The inputs carry their own dates. The dollar, volatility, gold, oil and other market-price inputs were dated 6 November. The 10-year real yield and the 2-year yield were dated 4 November, inflation expectations, the yield curve and credit spreads 5 November, financial stress and the term premium 30 October, and futures positioning 27 October, so the run did not include futures positions as of 3 November. The score’s real-yield input was 2.64%. The Treasury’s 2.63% for 6 November falls in the same 2.5%–3.5% bracket, worth 2 of 20 points.

What does a week like this mean for a long-term holder?

A week like this shows how far gold can move in a few days. It rose almost 5% in a week that held an election, the worst day for US stocks since April 2025 and a stronger jobs report than expected, and the explanations offered for it, from lower oil to a weaker dollar to traders closing bets against gold, were about that week’s news. Whether any of it changes the case for holding metals over years is a separate question, and one week of prices cannot answer it. The Academy’s Market Context section keeps the current backdrop in one place, and How Much Should You Hold? sets out how investors size a holding without reacting to each week.

Sources and Methodology

This review compares Friday 6 November 2026 with Friday 30 October, and each day with the one before; every figure keeps its own reference date. Gold, silver and the US Dollar Index use Investing.com’s daily-history rows, read at 2:16 p.m. Pacific time on 6 November, after spot metals had stopped trading, not dealer prices, an LBMA benchmark or a futures settlement; the rows for Monday to Thursday were unchanged from an earlier reading that day. Treasury yields are the Treasury’s par and real par curves, including Friday’s rows, read the same afternoon. Share-index and oil figures are as reported by the Associated Press, which does not name the Brent contract; we give no weekly change for either, because we had not read an official Friday close for either when we wrote. Percentage changes from the daily-history rows are (later ÷ earlier − 1) × 100 and basis-point changes are (later − earlier) × 100, our arithmetic; the gap between the nominal and real 10-year yields is our subtraction from the Treasury’s two curves. Payroll revisions are the bureau’s own. Election results are as reported by NPR and the Associated Press. Prices exclude transaction costs, taxes and individual currency arrangements.

The Macro Conditions Score readings are the dashboard’s recorded Engine V2 snapshots for each weekday run from 30 October to 6 November 2026, with their blocks, component signals, direction components and input dates, read from the record on 6 November; nothing was recalculated or adjusted for this article. The band edges and the dollar input’s 2% line are from the engine’s code. Proposed explanations and portfolio implications are editorial analysis, not a transaction-level causal audit. No rate-rise probability was calculated by us.

Conflicts of interest, stated plainly. Views attributed to Forex.com, Julius Baer, Saxo Bank and other firms are their analysts’ own, as reported by Reuters, and statements by Fed officials are their own. GoldSilverPortfolio has no affiliate or commission arrangement with any firm named here. It may earn a commission through two links elsewhere on this site: an affiliate link to SilverGoldBull, a bullion dealer, and a referral link to Wealthsimple, a brokerage. It also sells TaxStack, a paid record-keeping tool, and publishes the Macro Conditions Score discussed here. No fund, dealer, exchange, trading signal or analyst’s forecast is presented here as a recommendation to buy or sell.

Primary sources

• Investing.com — XAU/USD, XAG/USD and US Dollar Index historical data, daily-history rows for 30 October and 2 to 6 November 2026, read on 6 November 2026: gold US$3,875.44, 3,947.67, 3,928.50, 4,060.02, 4,087.71 and 4,065.04; silver US$49.1277, 50.6342, 49.7817, 52.2235, 51.7634 and 52.0165; dollar index 101.88, 101.75, 101.87, 101.57, 101.55 and 102.30
• US Department of the Treasury — Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates and Daily Treasury Par Real Yield Curve Rates, November 2026, and the October pages for 30 October: 10-year 4.94%, 4.91%, 4.95%, 4.90%, 4.84% and 4.86%; 10-year real 2.60%, 2.62%, 2.65%, 2.64%, 2.60% and 2.63%; 2-year 4.56%, 4.59%, 4.61%, 4.58%, 4.46% and 4.51%, for 30 October and 2 to 6 November
• US Bureau of Labor Statistics — “The Employment Situation — October 2026”, USDL-26-1632, 6 November 2026, 8:30 a.m. ET, with Summary table A and Summary table B
• US Bureau of Labor Statistics — “Productivity and Costs, Third Quarter 2026, Preliminary”, USDL 26-1631, 5 November 2026, 8:30 a.m. ET, including the revised second quarter
• US Bureau of Labor Statistics — “Job Openings and Labor Turnover – September 2026” and Table 1, 3 November 2026: openings 7,523,000, August 7,190,000
• Institute for Supply Management — “October 2026 ISM Manufacturing PMI Report”, 2 November 2026
• Institute for Supply Management, via PR Newswire — “Services PMI® at 54.5%; October 2026 ISM® Services PMI® Report”, 4 November 2026, 10:00 ET
• Bank of England — “Bank Rate increased to 4% - November 2026 Monetary Policy Summary and Minutes”, published 5 November 2026, for the meeting ending on 4 November
• NPR — “2026 election: Democrats win full control of Congress”, first published 3 November 2026, 11:44 p.m. ET, updated 4 November, 1:52 a.m. ET
• The Associated Press, carried by PBS News — “Democrats take control of the Senate after winning key midterm races”, published 3 November 2026, 11:40 p.m. EST
• Reuters, carried by Kitco — “Gold rises over 1% from one-year low on softer oil prices; US midterms in focus”, 2 November 2026: oil down more than 6% on Iran–Qatar talks; the relative strength index; FedWatch 76.6%; Carsten Menke of Julius Baer
• Reuters, carried by Kitco — “Gold edges lower again as dollar, yields strengthen; US midterms in focus”, 3 November 2026: FedWatch 79%; Fawad Razaqzada of Forex.com
• Reuters, carried by Kitco — “Gold hits 2-week high as dollar, yields, oil fall after US midterms”, 5 November 2026: session high US$4,146.63; FedWatch 81%; Ole Hansen of Saxo Bank
• Reuters, carried by Kitco — “Gold drops but stays on track for best week in over two months”, 6 November 2026, before the jobs report: FedWatch 70%; two Fed officials on 5 November
• Reuters, carried by Kitco — “Dollar climbs as stock rout spreads to Asian, European markets”, 6 November 2026, before the jobs report
• Reuters, carried by Kitco — Lucia Mutikani, “US job growth expected to pick up in October, with moderation in wage gains”, 6 November 2026: the Reuters poll, 65,000 jobs, 4.2% unemployment, wages 2.9% over 12 months
• Reuters, carried by Kitco — Ann Saphir, “Fed seen sticking to December rate hike after jobs data”, 6 November 2026: FedWatch about 78%, 85% shortly after the release and about 67% on 5 November; Alberto Musalem
• Kitco News — Neils Christensen, “Gold prices see some selling pressure as US economy created 165k in October”, 6 November 2026: spot gold after the release
• The Associated Press — “Stocks surge, and the Dow soars 1,500 points as oil prices tumble following the US midterm elections”, 4 November 2026; “A brutal sell-off for AI stocks sends Wall Street reeling, and the S&P 500 tumbles 4.4%”, 5 November 2026: closing levels, Brent and the 10-year yield
• The Associated Press — “AI stocks halt their brutal, worldwide sell-off as Wall Street trims its loss for the week”, 6 November 2026, as updated after the close: the S&P 500 up 0.3%, the Nasdaq composite up 1.1%
• GoldSilverPortfolio — Macro Conditions Score dashboard (Engine V2), recorded tactical snapshots for 30 October and 2 to 6 November 2026 with their blocks, component signals, direction components and input dates, read from the record on 6 November 2026