Happy Sunday, GoldBuzzers!

Gold closed October at its lowest level of the year. A week later it’s back above $4,000, the miners have had their best week since August, and Peter Schiff is calling the midterm result the most bullish thing that could have happened to precious metals.

This week’s Deep Dive takes a look at what actually moved this week, why, and whether the election changes the picture for gold owners beyond the next few weeks.

Ok. Let’s get into it. ⬇️

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Jobs shock takes the shine off a big week

Gold slipped to $4,066 an ounce on Friday after the October jobs report landed far hotter than anyone expected. The US economy added 165,000 jobs against forecasts of around 65,000, unemployment dipped to 4.1 percent, and wage growth beat estimates too.

That lifted the dollar and firmed up market bets that the Federal Reserve will raise rates again when it meets on December 9. Even so, both metals closed out a strong week.

As I’ll be discussing below, the Democratic sweep of Congress in Tuesday’s midterms pushed the dollar and bond yields lower and sent investors rotating out of AI stocks into defensive assets.

Gold finished the week up almost five percent after touching $4,147 on Thursday, while silver gained close to six percent, briefly trading above $53 before settling just under $52. The next test comes Tuesday, when US inflation data lands.

On Friday, October 30, gold closed at $3,876. That was its lowest close of 2026, 28 percent below the record of $5,420 set on January 28. Silver finished the same day at $48.90, down well over half from its January high, and both the big miner ETFs closed at their lows for the year too. Through the end of October, gold and bitcoin were the two worst-performing major assets of 2026, which had never happened in a calendar year before.

Four days later, Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate.

A bounce from the bottom

By this Friday’s close, gold was at $4,069, up 5 percent on the week. Silver did better, up 6.2 percent to $51.94. The miners did best of all. The VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) rose 13.6 percent and the Global X Silver Miners ETF (SIL) rose 11.4 percent, in a week when the S&P 500 fell 4.4 percent on Thursday alone, its worst day since April 2025.

What the election changed

With a Republican in the White House and Democrats running Congress, Washington is divided. Any new law needs both sides, so large new spending programs are hard to pass for the next two years. Bond investors read that as less government borrowing ahead. The 10-year Treasury yield fell from 4.95 percent on Tuesday to 4.87 percent by Friday, and the dollar index touched a one-month low on Wednesday. Gold pays no interest, so when yields fall, the cost of holding it instead of Treasuries falls with them. A weaker dollar makes it cheaper for buyers everywhere else.

Oil did even more. Brent crude fell more than 16 percent on the week, from near $117 to under $100, on hopes that the new Congress will push to wind down the conflict with Iran, where the US is still blockading Iranian ports and Qatar is mediating talks. Cheaper oil lowers inflation expectations, which pulled yields down with it. There’s a tension in that for gold, since lower inflation expectations also weaken the case for gold as inflation protection. This week, the yield effect won.

Schiff’s case

On Thursday, I noticed Peter Schiff had posted twice. In the morning, with miners already up sharply, he wrote that gold and silver mining stocks “shouldn’t be selling off with the general stock market,” and that “the Democratic landslide, and what it portends for 2028, is the most bullish development that could happen for precious metals. The coming rally will be one for the ages.”

That afternoon, after the S&P 500 had dropped 4.4 percent, he laid out the path he expects. A recession forces the Fed “to abort the planned December rate hike.” Then “Trump and the Democrats will work together to pass a massive stimulus package, which the Fed will finance with the mother of all QE programs.” Deficits approach $5 trillion a year, the dollar sinks and consumer prices soar. That post has been viewed nearly half a million times.

When a reader challenged him, he put the whole thesis in two lines: “I am bullish on precious metals due to federal deficit spending and inflation. Both will be higher under Democrats than Republicans.” Schiff, whose firm sells bullion, added that his forecast of a Democratic sweep was “one reason I’ve been so bullish” before the vote. His Friday follow-up quoted GDX up 9.6 percent for the week; that was Wednesday’s figure, and by Friday’s close it was up 13.6 percent.

Two clocks running at once

The gridlock story and the Schiff story aren’t really in conflict. They just run on different clocks. The near-term clock says divided government means less spending, lower yields and a softer dollar, all of which gold liked this week. The Schiff clock says the result shows where policy is heading after 2028, and that any slowdown before then gets met with more stimulus and money printing.

The Fed currently sits between the two. It raised rates in September and held at 3.75 to 4 percent on October 28, with Chair Warsh leaving the door open to more while inflation stays above target. Friday’s jobs report opened it wider, with 165,000 jobs added against forecasts of around 59,000, unemployment down to 4.1 percent and wages up 3.1 percent on the year. The odds of a December hike moved to roughly 77 percent, and gold gave back about half a percent on the day. Schiff’s scenario needs the Fed to abandon that hike. For now the data is pushing the other way.

Where that leaves gold owners

The miners showed both edges of their blade this week. They move two to three times as far as the metal, and that leverage ran against them for most of 2026, with GDX falling 24 percent from its February high before this rally. Physical metal is always the steadier way to invest in the metals, with miners the more volatile way.

Gold fell for ten months, bottomed on the Friday before the vote, and then had its best week since August. The week’s drivers won’t hold on their own. Oil can bounce, yields can climb, and the Fed is more likely to hike in December than to back off. The longer argument, Schiff’s argument, depends on deficits and stimulus that haven’t been voted on yet.

This has been a year of an early euphoric high followed by a grinding drop that has tried the patience of many a grizzled precious metals veteran. What the election changed is the question. For ten months it was why gold kept falling. Now it’s how much Washington will borrow, spend and print over the next two years and beyond, and that’s the question gold has always answered best.

Every great run in the metal, from the 1970s to the years after 2008, started with governments and the money they owed. Gold is still 28 percent below its January record, and that’s the point. Long consolidations in gold have ended with the next leg carrying the price to new highs, not back to the old ones, and every reason this one ends that way got stronger on Tuesday night. The timing is Washington’s. The direction, on the data, has never been in doubt.

That’s all for this Sunday, folks. I’ll see you on Tuesday.

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Rick Adams
Founder, GoldBuzz
rick@goldbuzz.com