Gold (XAU/USD) falls toward $3,270 as weak Chinese demand and mixed U.S.-China trade signals weigh on sentiment.
Silver (XAG/USD) slips to $32.96 amid softer Chinese demand and cautious market mood fueled by trade uncertainty.
Gold defends the $3,270 triple-bottom zone, while silver stabilizes near $32.96.
Source – FX Empire
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered support for Jerome Powell amid regular attacks from President Donald Trump, saying he sees no reason for the Federal Reserve chair to step down. Trump has maintained his criticism of the Fed chief and stressed his belief that the central bank’s benchmark rate should be 3 percentage points lower.
Political interference and a potential attempt to oust of Powell before his term ends is throwing the Fed’s independence into question. That’s negative for the dollar, and is helping boost haven demand for gold.
“The USD is losing its store of value function” and bullion is exceptionally well-placed to benefit, TD Securities senior commodity strategist Dan Ghali said in a note.
Spot gold was up nearly 1% to $3,430.05 an ounce at 2:16 p.m. in New York. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.4%. Silver and palladium advanced while platinum slipped.
Source – Bloomberg
Copper’s rise is being driven “solely by supply concerns surrounding the potential for universal tariffs to be placed on all imports of copper into the U.S.,” said Natalie Scott-Gray, a senior metals demand analyst at StoneX. The U.S. is “heavily reliant on foreign copper, with imports accounting for [around] 45% of demand.”
Copper prices have climbed more than 23% in 2025 through Monday, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Source – Market Watch
Freeport’s last export permit expired at the end of 2024, but the company has requested it can continue selling copper concentrate abroad because its local copper smelter was in repair after a fire in October last year.
“The trade ministry supports a plan to relax the export policy after weighing the cost and benefit analysis … while also observing the sustainability of the government’s natural resource downstreaming policy,” deputy minister Dyah Roro Esti said in a statement.
Freeport Indonesia said that it’s currently negotiating with the government over the export permit and believed the government “would accommodate” it.
Source – Mining.com
Freeport McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) trades little changed Thursday as Jefferies upgrades shares to Buy from Hold with a $48 price target, raised from $40, just one month after downgrading due to risks in Indonesia, a cautious view on copper, and the company’s near-term lack of free cash flow.
If tariffs are implemented, Comex copper price premiums to the LME, which have been high already because of potential tariffs, likely will rise further, Jefferies analyst Christopher LaFemina says, noting Freeport (FCX) sells 1.35B lbs/year of copper at Comex prices and the current Comex premium to LME is ~$0.30/lb, and tariff-impacted imports would effectively set the Comex price since the U.S. cannot be self-sufficient in copper.
Source – Seeking Alpha
Jefferies – Jefferies Financial Group Inc. is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company headquartered in New York City.
The silver market continues to see a lot of noisy trading, after initially gapping higher, and then dropping. Since then, we have seen a massive number of buyers. Silver is a market that continues to see a lot of volatility.
Ultimately, this is a market where if we can break above the $35 level cleanly, then I think we will go back to the highs and then eventually go much higher than that.
Source – FX EMPIRE / Tech analysis
Gold prices are “not even that far away from all-time highs, so the upward momentum is there, we just need some kind of trigger to get it going,” Blue Line Futures chief market strategist Phillip Streible said.
Front-month Comex gold (XAUUSD:CUR) for January delivery settled +1.1% to $2,766.80/oz, gold’s 11th gain in 15 sessions, and front-month January silver (XAGUSD:CUR) closed +1.5% to $30.727/oz.
Source – Seeking Alpha
