Bullion surged as much as 1.4% to $2,798.59 an ounce, surpassing its previous all-time high set in October. A weaker dollar makes bullion more appealing for investors holding other currencies as it’s priced in the US currency.
“When you get rising inflation and you get declining growth, you get stagflation, then gold is one of the best-performing commodities in that environment.”
Source – Bloomberg
Silver is more volatile than gold. Monthly historical volatility in the COMEX silver futures market is at 19.88%, while gold’s monthly price variance metric is 10.45%. Silver’s penchant for high price volatility attracts more speculative market participants than gold. While gold is an investment asset, silver tends to be a trading vehicle.
Source – Seeking Alpha / Analysis
SILJ – is Amplify Junior Silver Miners
Glencore has suspended production and declared force majeure on copper shipments from its Altonorte smelter in Chile due to an issue affecting the plant’s furnace, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, in a setback that comes just as traders and producers race to ship more metal to the U.S. ahead of tariffs.
Much of the copper produced in Chile is shipped to the U.S., where Comex prices have surged to record highs on worries about shortages due to tariffs; the most active Comex copper contract (HG1:COM) for May delivery hit $5.374/lb, or $11,847/metric ton on Wednesday.
Source – Seeking Alpha
“We believe that he’s using (auto tariffs) as a trade negotiation. The markets are jittery because nobody really knows what’s going to happen and what will come out in future,” Nicolas Lin, chairman and interim CEO of Aether Holdings.
European stocks fell, with weakness in shares of Europe’s top carmakers such as Volkswagen down nearly 2%, while BMW lost almost 3% and Mercedes-Benz slid more than 4%.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.2% to 104.43, with the euro up 0.24% at $1.0777.
The Mexican peso weakened 0.82% versus the dollar at 20.288 while the Canadian dollar weakened 0.39% versus the greenback to C$1.43 per dollar as both countries are expected to be heavily impacted by the tariffs.
Source – Reuters
“U.S. dollar and Treasury yields are lower, which is helping gold catch a bit of support… The overall uptrend remains intact and the path of least resistance favours the upside,” said Ilya Spivak, head of global macro at Tastylive.
“Prices have been stable in a range between about 2,830 and 2,960 for the past four weeks… We would need to see a convincing break above or below these boundaries to conclude that some sort of lasting directional move is resuming.”
Spot silver added 0.3% to $32.19 an ounce, platinum was steady at $957.89 and palladium lost 0.3% to $940.47.
Source – Reuters
The most recent trading sessions have showcased gold’s resilience and volatility. Following a sharp decline of $45 per troy ounce in spot gold and a $63 drop in April futures on Friday, February 14, the market demonstrated strong recovery momentum. After the Presidents’ Day holiday closure, Tuesday’s trading saw spot gold gain $36.97, and the April futures contract gaining $60.70, nearly reaching the record levels established on February 12.
Source – KITCO News / Opinion