Gold Settles Lower at $4,310 as Dollar and Oil Pressure Futures
Front-month gold settled down 1.3% in New York at $4,310 a troy ounce, while silver fell 1.6% to $63.513 a troy ounce. The Sept. 14 settlements, reported by the Wall Street Journal, are the most recent dated closes in a volatile 2026 sequence for precious metals.
Eleven days earlier, gold futures had also settled lower amid U.S. dollar gains and higher oil futures while Middle East tensions persisted. That Sept. 3 session was covered in the Journal's commodities-futures file at Wall Street Journal. The driver mix was cross-asset. A firmer dollar raises the local-currency cost of dollar-denominated metal. Higher oil futures lift input and transport costs elsewhere in the commodity complex.
The September softness followed a firmer August settlement. Comex gold settled 0.60% higher at $4,516.30, and Comex silver settled 3.49% higher at $68.026. Those Aug. 20 closes left gold more than $200 above the later $4,310 front-month settlement and silver more than $4 above the later $63.513 print.
The path between spring and late summer was not linear. Spot gold fell for a second straight session on July 13, down 3% at $3,996.76 per ounce by 1:40 p.m. EDT (1740 GMT), according to Reuters. That was the weakest spot print in the verified sequence. Two months earlier, on May 13, spot gold was down 0.6% at $4,686.35 per ounce at 1:59 p.m. EDT (1759 GMT), while U.S. gold futures settled 0.4% higher at $4,706.70. Still earlier, on March 9, Comex gold settled 1.06% lower at $5,091.50.
The 2026 trading range sits well above levels that set records in October 2025. Reuters reported on Oct. 13 that gold hit a record high of $4,116.77 per ounce on U.S.-China trade woes, while silver scaled an all-time peak of $52.12 per ounce, according to Reuters. Those peaks preceded the March to September 2026 prints above $5,000, near $4,700, below $4,000, and then in the mid-$4,000s.
Sell-side expectations clustered higher through that climb. Bank of America raised its 2026 gold price forecast to $5,000 per ounce, as reported by Reuters. Bank of America forecast silver at $65 per ounce in its 2026 outlook. Morgan Stanley forecast gold prices to reach $4,500 per ounce by mid-2026. Major brokerages expected gold to reach $5,000 per ounce in 2026 on safe-haven demand amid geopolitical tension and monetary policy easing, according to a January 2026 report. J.P. Morgan Global Research analysts expected gold to push to $6,000 per ounce in their 2026 and 2027 outlook, according to J.P. Morgan Global Research.
The broader context here is dispersion across tenors, venues and forecasts. Spot, front-month and Comex settlements do not always move together. The May sequence captured that split cleanly. Spot fell while U.S. futures settled higher. The range is wide. For desks managing margin and roll cost, that split matters more than any single close.
Looking at what this means for positioning, the forecast stack now spans $4,500 to $6,000 for gold, with silver expectations anchored at $65 against spot and futures prints in the low $60s into September. Safe-haven demand linked to geopolitical tension and the path of monetary policy easing remain the stated supports in the brokerage outlooks. Dollar strength and energy-price moves remain the near-term offsets. The metal has absorbed both. That tension explains the repeated reversals from March through September without requiring a change in the longer-term thesis.
