Gold holds near $4,140 after payrolls rise by only 29,000

Gold traded near 4,140 dollars an ounce on Monday, 5 October 2026, after the weakest US jobs print of the year failed to undo last week's drop. Bullion had fallen 3.4 percent the previous week, its largest weekly loss since June. September nonfarm payrolls rose by 29,000, below every estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Forecasts had clustered around 85,000 to 90,000.

The rest of Friday's report pointed the same way. Revisions cut about 60,000 jobs from July and August. Unemployment rose to 4.2 percent. Wages rose 0.1 percent on the month, the slowest annual wage growth since May 2021 on one market reading. Odds of a Federal Reserve rate increase in October fell from about 70 percent earlier in the week to about 20 percent or less. A payroll miss of that size would normally lift gold. It did, at the open. Gold reached about 4,239 dollars and then gave the gain back. It settled 40 dollars lower at 4,162.30, ending the week down 3.6 percent. Silver settled at 60.42 dollars, down 6.7 percent on the week.

Monday morning gold was up about 33 dollars near 4,196, with silver firmer still, and the dollar index also higher, trading above Thursday's high near 102.5 in Asia. Gold and the dollar rising together is the awkward print. A weaker labour market usually hurts the dollar and helps the metal. Both rose because the long end of the bond market did not follow the payrolls. On Friday the 10-year yield dipped below 5.17 percent and then reversed, closing at 5.276 percent, higher on the day. The 30-year yield sat near 5.6 percent. A softer Fed path that does not pull long yields down does not give gold a clean bid.

That is the mechanical point under the headline. Gold has been priced off real yields and off the chance of further hikes. The jobs report cut the hike odds. It did not cut the 10-year yield into the close. Holders who bought the open at 4,239 dollars were selling into a bond market that had changed its mind by the settlement. Monday's recovery toward 4,140 to 4,196 dollars puts the metal back where it was before the failed rally, not through last week's high.

The dollar's resilience is the other half. The index held near 102, close to its highest since April 2025, despite the payroll miss. A strong dollar usually caps gold in dollar terms. Monday's joint rise says buyers of both were hedging different risks: dollar buyers hedging rates and geopolitics, gold buyers hedging the same geopolitics without trusting the bond rally. Brent crude near 101 dollars, a shut Strait of Hormuz, and a new air campaign over Yemen are the geopolitical list in the background. None of them printed a fresh gold high on Monday.

Silver's week is the sharper percentage. A 6.7 percent drop to 60.42 dollars, then a larger Monday bounce than gold, is the industrial-metal version of the same confusion. Silver needs the jobs story to become a growth story before it outperforms. A 29,000 payroll print is not that story. It is a stall.

The figure that decides the next move is the 10-year yield, not the next speech. If 5.276 percent was a one-day reversal and yields fall toward the 5.17 percent dip, gold's failed Friday open becomes a delay. If yields hold above 5.25 percent, 4,140 dollars is a shelf under a metal that could not hold 4,239 dollars on the friendliest US labour report in months.