Gold touched its lowest price since November 2025 on June 11, then promptly bounced. Spot gold dipped to $4,022.09 per ounce before clawing back to trade in the $4,077 to $4,089 range, while US gold futures for August delivery hovered near $4,111.

The precious metal has shed roughly 12.8% to 13.5% over the past month.

What drove gold off a cliff

The selloff has a familiar villain: a US labor market that refuses to cool down. May’s jobs report showed 172,000 new positions added, nearly double the 85,000 consensus estimate. Rate-hike odds for December jumped to 72% after that jobs print, and gold, which pays no yield, becomes less attractive when interest rates climb.

Then there’s the geopolitical layer. Renewed oil price spikes tied to US strikes on Iran have injected fresh inflation anxiety into markets. But the prospect of rate hikes in response to that same inflation has been the stronger gravitational pull, dragging gold lower despite the very conditions that typically support it.

Why today’s stabilization matters

The bounce from $4,022 wasn’t some triumphant reversal. It was short-covering, traders closing out bearish bets to lock in profits after a steep decline.

What happens next depends almost entirely on economic data arriving in the coming days, specifically the US Producer Price Index report. PPI measures wholesale-level inflation, the costs that businesses pay before passing them along to consumers.

A hot PPI reading would present gold with an interesting paradox. Rising producer prices would reinforce the inflation narrative that normally benefits gold as a store of value. But it would simultaneously increase the probability of Fed tightening, which puts downward pressure on gold by raising the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset.

The bigger picture for investors

Despite the recent carnage, some perspective is useful. Gold at $4,077 per ounce is still dramatically higher than where it traded a year ago. The metal’s long-term trajectory has been upward, driven by central bank buying, de-dollarization trends, and persistent global uncertainty.

The $4,022 level now becomes a critical technical floor. If gold revisits that price and breaks below it, the next support zone could be significantly lower.