After 15 weeks of being trapped in the claws of $1,700 pricing or lower, gold (XAUUSD) broke free to hit a 5-month-high above $1,800 an ounce on Thursday as easing U.S. inflation and jobs growth pointed to new commitment for smaller increments of Federal Reserve rate hikes going forward.

Among other reasons of growing concern among economists and investors, the U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditure Index, an inflation indicator known as the “PCE” and closely tracked by the Fed, grew by an annual rate of 6% in October versus a 6.3% growth in the year to September. U.S. jobs growth, which has been blamed for runaway inflation in the United States, has begun easing too.

Today's continuing gain in gold prices comes on the back of a strong gain in the precious metal in November on expectations of a slowdown of rate hikes. In India, for example, gold prices had jumped nearly 5% in November. In global markets, spot gold today rose around 1% to $1,785.60 per ounce, supported by a pullback in dollar index and U.S. bond yields. U.S. gold futures’ benchmark February contract settled at $1,815.20 per ounce on New York’s Comex, rising $55.30, or 3.1%, on the single day of December 1. The intraday high was at $1,818.25, slightly undershooting $1,830 high reached on June 30. The spot price of gold was at $1,800.50 an ounce by midday December 2nd. Spot gold’s peak for the day was almost $1,804/oz.

Meanwhile, the Dollar Index, DXY, fell to a 3 ½ month low of 104.578 on the increasing chance of a Fed rate pivot.

Gold has started December apparently reinvigorated, rising 3% right away after November’s 7% gain. Prior to that, the yellow metal was down seven months in a row, falling from a near record high just shy of $2,080 to $1,618. Momentum could also lift the yellow metal to levels seen earlier in the year, when it soared to near record highs of above $2,000 in April. At the moment, spot gold’s weekly resistance sits at $1,806. A weekly close above $1,806 is verily needed as affirmation of further ascent to the next decisive walkthrough of 1,830 and 1,842.

Back on November 22, a popular commodities' news portal Kitco published an article pointing out, that records show the Central Asia’s republic of Uzbekistan bought 8.7 tons of gold in October, the 5th straight month when the country purchased such greater amounts of bullion. At the same time, the Central Bank of Turkey reportedly bought 9 tons of gold last month, lifting YTD net gold purchases to 103 tons and bringing the country’s total official gold reserves now total 498 tons. This lifts YTD net purchases to 37 tons, and total country’s gold reserves to 399 tons.

The latest gold purchasing spree come just weeks after the World Gold Council reported that central banks bought a record of nearly 400 tons of gold between July and September this year, as central banks’ demand in Q3 increased by 300% on an annual basis. The WGC also noted that along with the reported purchases, there is a substantial estimate of unreported buying, where China, among other beneficiaries, likely bought a “substantial amount of gold from Russia”.

In similar fashion, Silver (XAGUSD), which often follows the direction of gold, but is considered more volatile, rallied sharply into December as well, with the benchmark futures contract on Comex hitting a 7-month high of $22.94 while spot silver hit a similar milestone with $22.74. Silver is up 5% month-to-date (MTD) after rising almost 14% in November.