Gold prices rose more than 5% this week, with the US Federal Reserve’s vague guidance and rising debt concerns fueling gains in precious metals.

⑴ International precious metals futures mostly closed higher on Friday, with COMEX gold futures rising about 2% to around $4,660 per ounce, marking a cumulative weekly gain of over 5%. COMEX silver futures rose by more than 1% to $69 per ounce, with a cumulative weekly increase of approximately 6%. ⑵ The Federal Reserve has recently adjusted its communication strategy, reducing explicit guidance on future policy paths and instead adopting a more ambiguous monetary policy stance. This change has amplified volatility in the precious metals market, making investor pricing of interest rate prospects more reliant on actual data. ⑶ The scale of U.S. debt continues to expand, having surpassed $40 trillion, with annual interest payments exceeding $1 trillion. Market concerns over the sustainability of the U.S. debt burden are rising, further raising expectations for interest rate cuts and putting additional pressure on the U.S. dollar. ⑷ Industrial demand for silver continues to increase. Combined with macro-level expectations of interest rate cuts and underlying tight supply-demand fundamentals, this has driven silver to outperform gold and caused the gold-silver ratio to narrow.