President Donald Trump said he will put a 50% tariff on copper imports effective Aug. 1.
“I am announcing a 50% tariff on copper, effective Aug. 1, 2025, after receiving a robust national security assessment,” Trump posted to his Truth Social account Wednesday evening.
Copper prices rose 2.62% after Trump’s comments, then extended its gains before leaping 13.12% upwards and hitting its best one-day gain since 1989.
Source – UPI News
Gold
Gold remains stuck near the resistance at $2930 – $2940 as traders continue to take profits off the table near historic highs.
Silver
Silver declined below the $32.50 level as gold/silver ratio climbed above the 91 level.
Platinum
Platinum tests new lows as traders react to the strong sell-off in palladium markets, which are down by 3.4%.
Source – FXEMPIRE
According to SMM, the cash spot prices for national standard silver ingots in Shanghai today were quoted at a discount of 4 yuan/kg to 1 yuan/kg, while the premiums and discounts for large-scale silver ingots were quoted at a range of a discount of 2 yuan/kg to parity.
Source – SMM
This year has been an up and down ride for silver after 2023 but seems to have taken a turn in the last quarter of the year.
“Silver fell to a quarterly low of US$30.11 on November 27, but since then the precious metal has regained some ground. As of December 11, it was trading at US$31.88.
The next Fed meeting is set to run from December 17 to 18. Most analysts expect the central bank to make one last 25 basis point cut before pausing in 2025.”
Source – Investing News Network
The U.S. will soon be flooded with massive amounts of copper shipments in a global rush to front-run President Trump’s probable tariffs, with 100K-150K metric tons of refined copper expected to arrive in U.S. ports in the coming weeks, which potentially would surpass the all-time record of 136,951 tons set in January 2022, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Goldman Sachs analysts said they expect all forms of copper shipped to the U.S. to be hit with tariffs by year-end, keeping Comex prices at a hefty premium over other benchmarks, and noted that tariffs could cause China to refine 10K-20K tons/month less copper within the first three months – in a global market that Goldman already expected to face a 180K-ton deficit this year.
Source – Seeking Alpha
“Gold is an asset that is able to preserve value under the biggest variety of macroeconomic dislocations that we have seen,” said Thomas Kertsos, co-portfolio manager at First Eagle Investment Management LLC. “We’ve seen that over centuries gold has been able to — despite the volatility — always mean-revert and always maintain its purchasing power, all while providing significant liquidity.”
“You’ve got huge uncertainty coming out of US policy that’s also just casting its shade over the global economy this year,” said Ian Samson, a multi-asset portfolio manager at Fidelity in Singapore.
The foundations for the gold rally were partly set by global central banks’ wariness of relying heavily on the US dollar, also a reflection of geopolitical uncertainty.
Source – Bloomberg
Rally – is a period of sustained increases in the prices of related indexes. In this case we are talking about gold.
The most active futures on gold are currently trading at $2745.10, up $27.30 or 1% from a day earlier. That level is just about 2% shy of its all-time settlement high of $2800.80 marked on Oct. 30. If the contract closes at current levels, it would be the highest close since last month, according to the Dow Jones Market Data.
“Gold remains the consummate hedge for investors worried about inflation or growth,” wrote Jared Woodard and the team from BofA securities on Tuesday. Gold was labeled as BofA’s “highest conviction investment ideas for 2025.”
Source – BARRON’S
BofA securities – Bank of America Inc., previously Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) is an American multinational investment banking division under the auspices of Bank of America.
