The gold price spent time below the US$2,000 per ounce mark again this week, falling as low as the US$1,940 level. The yellow metal remains historically high with room to move up, but is facing short-term headwinds.

Among those setbacks is the US dollar, which strengthened this week despite uncertainty surrounding the US$31.4 trillion debt ceiling. Democrats and Republicans were still in talks as of the week's end, but had not reported significant progress.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has pegged June 5 as the "X-date," the time by which the US will default if it doesn't raise the debt ceiling, although some commentators have suggested there's more wiggle room than that.

"We now estimate that Treasury will have insufficient resources to satisfy the government’s obligations if Congress has not raised or suspended the debt limit by June 5" — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen

Market watchers were also looking out for the US Federal Reserve's latest meeting minutes. Released on Wednesday (May 24), they show that the central bank continues to view the American banking system as "sound and resilient."

Its 2 percent target for inflation remains in place, but experts are split on whether there will be another rate hike in June. Friday (May 26) brought the release of the latest personal consumption expenditures price index data, and it shows that the core number rose 0.4 percent month-on-month in April, and 4.7 percent year-on-year; both values were slightly higher than expected.

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