A 12% y/y drop in Q4 gold jewellery consumption to 547t- took the annual total down to 1,877t, down 11%, as unrelenting gold price strength impacted consumers’ ability to buy, the World Gold Council (WGC) said in a report on Wednesday.
For 2025, the WGC said central banks and “ETF investors likely to drive demand with economic uncertainty supporting gold’s role as a risk hedge, but on the flipside, keeping pressure on jewellery.”
Source – Seeking Alpha
Gold (XAU/USD) rose sharply during the Asian session on Thursday, reaching $3,126.67, as global markets reacted to renewed trade tensions.
Silver (XAG/USD) is trading at $33.28, having touched a session low of $33.07. Despite gold’s upward momentum, silver’s response has been more restrained, weighed down by its industrial use case.
Source – FX EMPIRE
Investors are increasingly seeking safe-haven in hard assets like gold, silver, copper and platinum, historically viewed as stores of value in times of financial uncertainty, Saxo Bank’s Ole Hansen says in a note.
Source – Wall Street Journal
Futures (in finance) – Are contracts to buy or sell a specific underlying asset at a future date.
Copper prices drifted higher on Wednesday as investors waited for details of U.S. reciprocal tariffs, but tin extended a rally to its highest in nearly three years on supply fears.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up 0.2% at $9,711 a metric ton by 0953 GMT after slipping to its weakest in three weeks at $9,668.50.
“Investors are confused, they’re uncertain about the outlook. It’s mostly tariff-related, although there’s also global conflict, currency debasement and confusion around central bank policy,” said Tom Price, head of commodities strategy at Panmure Liberum.
“Aluminium gives you an insight into what copper might do. It has gone through the first phase of factoring in the cost of tariffs and now it’s going into the second phase, where demand is deteriorating,” Price said.
Source – Business Recorder
Goldman Sachs says U.S. net copper imports could rise by 50%-100% in the coming months due to higher U.S. prices before the Trump administration’s planned tariffs, which the bank believes will be imposed at 25% and lead to the surge in imports and a 200K-300K-ton increase in U.S. copper inventories by the end of Q3.
“We maintain our forecast that the LME month-month price will average $10,200/ton in 2024 Q3, and see the impact of inventory dislocation predominantly in timespreads,” the bank writes.
Source – Seeking Alpha
Despite the losses of the last few days, the Copper price on the Comex is up a good 25 percent since the beginning of the year, almost on a par with tin. But on the LME, too, Copper is trading around 10 percent higher than at the beginning of the year, Commerzbank’s commodity analyst Barbara Lambrecht notes.
Source – FX Street
The United States Mint plans to open sales at noon Eastern Time April 22 for its 10-coin 2025 Silver Proof Set, priced at $150 per set.
The coins, all struck at the San Francisco Mint, are secured within two plastic lenses.
Source – Coin World
