Gold futures fall for the week on lower safe-haven demand ahead of Trump-Putin meeting

[stack of shiny gold bars 3d illustration]
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Gold futures ended flat on Friday but finished lower for the week, as improved risk appetite in markets diverted flows away from safe-haven assets.

The Trump administration's confirmation that gold tariffs would not be imposed [https://seekingalpha.com/news/4483364-gold-will-not-be-tariffed-trump-says-gold-and-silver-futures-fall-sharply] eased the market's panic that had sent gold soaring late last week, and the 90-day extension of the U.S.-China tariff reprieve, the waiver of tariffs on Japanese goods, and strong inflows into U.S. equities have all weighed on short-term safe-haven demand, Pepperstone's Dilin Wu said in a note.

The yellow metal likely will remain in the narrow $3,300-$3,400/oz range over the near term, with no clear catalysts able to break the deadlock between upward and downward pressures, Wu said.

Analysts also noted the U.S. Producer Price Index reading for July, which beat expectations by a wide margin and caused traders to scale back bets on a Federal Reserve rate cut in September, as well as the potential for President Trump's meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to lead to a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Gold stocks are finally reflecting gold’s popularity after years of underperformance, UBS said in a report this week, noting the GDX Index of gold mining stocks has outpaced the price of gold by more than 40% YTD after underperforming the metal by ~50% during 2019-24.

Improved earnings and balance sheets are helping the companies' stocks, and the UBS analysts expect to see more buybacks and organic growth projects in this year's H2.

This week, front-month Comex gold (XAUUSD:CUR [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/XAUUSD:CUR]) for August delivery ended -3% to $3,336.00/oz, snapping back-to-back positive weeks, and front-month August Comex silver (XAGUSD:CUR [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/XAGUSD:CUR]) closed -1.3% this week to $37.894/oz; on Friday, gold finished flat while silver slipped 0.2%.

ETFs: (NYSEARCA:GLD [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GLD]), (NYSEARCA:GDX [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GDX]), (GDXJ [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GDXJ]), (NYSEARCA:IAU [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/IAU]), (NYSEARCA:NUGT [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/NUGT]), (PHYS [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/PHYS]), (GLDM [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GLDM]), (AAAU [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/AAAU]), (SGOL [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/SGOL]), (RING [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RING]), (BAR [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/BAR]), (OUNZ [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/OUNZ]), (SLV [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/SLV]), (PSLV [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/PSLV]), (SIVR [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/SIVR]), (SIL [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/SIL]), (SILJ [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/SILJ])

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