Gold
Gold is ripping this morning. Spot prices sprinted to a fresh all-time high above $3,500/oz overnight before easing slightly into New York hours, with intraday prints clustering in the high-$3,490s and the session peak marked around $3,508/oz. The surge builds on a six-session run fueled by a softer dollar and swelling conviction that the Federal Reserve will cut rates at its September meeting—odds hovering near “fully priced” by fed-funds futures—and by a layer of political risk swirling around the central bank itself. In short, lower projected real rates plus a safety-bid equals higher gold, and today’s tape is the textbook version.
What’s different about today’s breakout is how many macro tailwinds lined up at once. The dollar index managed a small bounce in Asian trade, but the broader backdrop has been one of dollar softness—making dollar-denominated bullion cheaper abroad—and the market continues to digest Fed Governor Christopher Waller’s explicit support for initiating cuts and continuing them over the next three to six months. Layer on top the still-unfolding fight over the attempted removal of Governor Lisa Cook, which has put Fed independence under a spotlight, and you get a steady stream of defensive allocation into an asset that doesn’t depend on anyone’s promise to pay. Those ingredients helped propel spot through the psychologically important $3,500 handle before profit-taking nudged it back toward the high-$3,490s.
Equity markets aren’t helping or hurting in a linear way, which is often the case around event-heavy weeks. U.S. stock futures and cash trading have tilted softer as investors return from the long weekend and refocus on tariff headlines, ISM updates and Friday’s payrolls; in practice, that mix has meant choppy risk appetite and an underlying bid for havens like gold whenever yields back off. Even when equities wobble alongside a firmer dollar intraday, the policy path narrative keeps dip-buyers active, which is why the overnight spike didn’t unwind. Heading through the morning, traders are watching whether the next data prints drag the dollar lower again and allow gold to re-challenge the $3,500–$3,510 zone.
Silver
Silver is having its own breakout moment and then some. Spot vaulted through $40/oz for the first time since 2011, notching a 14-year high on Monday and holding that territory into today’s session with prints around $40.4–$40.7/oz. While silver nearly always takes its directional cue from gold, its higher beta means the combination of easier-policy bets, a broadly weaker dollar, and improved industrial sentiment has amplified the move. The result is a two-day sprint that pushed prices above a long-watched psychological threshold and reignited talk of a new leg higher if the dollar softens further or incoming data keeps September rate-cut odds pinned near 90%.
There’s also a cyclical tone to silver’s rally that’s distinct from gold’s policy trade. With tech-led equities whipsawing and global manufacturing still uneven, silver’s mixed identity—as both a monetary hedge and an industrial input—has actually helped it. When rate-cut hopes rise, silver’s correlation with gold does the heavy lifting; when risk appetite stabilizes, industrial demand hopes don’t evaporate the way they might during a proper growth scare. That interplay is visible this morning: even as the dollar nudged off its lows and yields flickered higher abroad, silver held near its 14-year zone while traders eyed whether payrolls could extend the macro sweet spot of easing financial conditions without a severe growth shock.
Other news moving gold and silver
Two forces define the backdrop: a policy pivot that markets see as imminent and a political drumbeat that keeps investors hedged. On policy, fed-funds futures have been steadily baking in a quarter-point cut on September 17 since Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole emphasis on labor-market risks, and major dealers have pulled their own forecasts forward to match. Waller’s remarks since then have hardened that consensus rather than softened it. For gold and silver, the transmission is straightforward: lower expected real rates reduce the opportunity cost of holding precious metals and typically pressure the dollar, producing the kind of parallel rallies we’re seeing across both metals.
On politics, questions about central-bank independence have not faded. The legal and rhetorical jousting around the effort to remove Governor Lisa Cook, along with broader commentary about appointments and policy direction, have injected an institutional risk premium into markets. Even when the dollar catches a reprieve intraday—as U.S. desks reopen after the holiday—those headlines tend to underpin haven allocations on dips, because they speak to the durability of the policy anchor as much as to the path of the policy rate itself. In practice that means gold rallies don’t exhaust themselves as quickly, and silver can ride gold’s coattails as long as growth expectations aren’t deteriorating sharply.
Stocks and bonds are the cross-currents. Wall Street opened on its back foot as traders weighed a court ruling complicating tariff policy and braced for a dense data slate; overseas, a jump in long-dated European yields signaled renewed fiscal anxiety. The equity wobble supports havens at the margin, while the bond selloff complicates the path for real rates and the dollar. For precious-metals traders, the near-term question is which side of that tug-of-war dominates into Friday’s jobs report: if yields rise for “bad” reasons (fiscal angst) and the dollar firms, rallies can pause; if policy-easing hopes reassert and the dollar sags, the door reopens to fresh highs in gold with silver tracking higher in high-beta fashion.
A final piece of the mosaic is the global trade and tariff storyline. Markets are still digesting legal developments around U.S. levies and the knock-on to corporate planning and supply chains. That uncertainty, combined with an already-fragile global manufacturing pulse, helps explain why safe-haven demand isn’t confined to purely monetary catalysts. It also explains why silver, with its hybrid role, can catch a bid from both sides: a defensive hedge in case tariffs pinch growth, and a cyclical play if easing financial conditions cushion the impact.
Platinum
Platinum is participating—if less dramatically—in the precious-metals upswing. Prices have rotated into the low-$1,400s per ounce during the overnight rally phase, with spot marks near $1,410–$1,416 in recent reporting. Unlike gold and silver, the bulk of platinum’s price discovery still comes from its industrial and automotive use cases, but the same macro drivers that weaken the dollar and pull forward Fed easing also tend to support basket buying across the complex. If payrolls confirm a cooling labor market and the Fed cuts in September, platinum could keep grinding higher so long as European demand steadies and South African supply doesn’t surprise to the upside.
Palladium
Palladium is steadier by comparison, trading around the low-$1,100s this morning after lagging the broader move. The metal’s narrower demand base in gasoline autocatalysts and its sensitivity to shifts in global auto production have capped enthusiasm even as gold and silver sprint. That said, today’s prints around $1,130–$1,145 are consistent with a market that’s firming off mid-year lows without fully recoupling to gold’s policy-driven melt-up. If the dollar resumes weakening and supply remains contained, palladium can continue to base; if risk sentiment sours alongside a firmer dollar, the metal’s beta can turn against it more quickly than gold’s.
Bottom line: the big story this morning is the magnitude of the moves in gold and silver—record territory for gold above $3,500/oz and a 14-year high for silver north of $40/oz—powered by a potent cocktail of near-certain September rate-cut expectations, a broadly softer-then-choppy dollar, and a persistent political risk premium around the Fed. Platinum and palladium are following at a respectful distance, guided more by industrial tides but benefitting from the same macro tailwinds that have reset the entire precious-metals complex onto a higher plateau.
