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The precious metal was up 0.5% to near $3,366 an ounce after Fed Governor Christopher Waller advocated for a rate cut last week and Governor Michelle Bowman also expressed an openness to a reduction. Meanwhile, their colleagues remained more cautious due to the risk of persistent inflation triggered by tariffs. Lower borrowing costs tend to benefit gold as it doesn't pay interest.
The divergence comes as Trump keeps up the pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell — whose term as chair expires in May 2026 — with the White House evaluating candidates to succeed him and pledging to pick someone who will cut rates. The president also pushed back on a Wall Street Journal report that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent advised him markets would react badly if he fired Powell.
On the trade front, European Union officials are set to meet as early as this week to formulate a plan to respond to a possible no-deal scenario with the US. Investors will be watching for progress on talks with a raft of trade partners ahead of Trump's Aug. 1 deadline for imposing so-called reciprocal tariffs.
Gold has climbed more than a quarter this year, with geopolitical tensions and concerns about dollar-denominated assets sparking flight to the haven asset. The precious metal has been trading within a tight range over the past few months, as investors wait for a clearer sense on global trade talks, the path for rate cuts and the impact of tariffs on the global economy.
Spot gold was up 0.5% at $3,368.35 an ounce as of 1:35 p.m. in Singapore. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index edged lower. Silver, platinum and palladium all rose.
--With assistance from Yihui Xie.
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- Yahoo
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Well, first of all, thanks for having me. And what we're seeing is early days when these tariffs were announced right after Liberation day, lots of customers maybe went into a little bit of a pause mode to try to predict what was going to happen or to try to understand the uncertainty. Since then, I think people have understood that this isn't going to be quick, and some of these deadlines are going to move. And it's going to take some time. So the forward leaning companies are really getting back to their strategies and executing their strategies. And I think it's not too dissimilar to what we've seen with other supply chain disruptions like COVID and bridge collapses, et cetera. While there's a little bit of a pause in the beginning, I think it very quickly confirms the fact that supply chain is mission critical software. And this is not an area that companies are going to pause or delay for a long time. This is an area that they consider not only mission critical, but strategic. 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U.S. slaps 20.56% anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber
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To the extent, Kevin, I wonder whether you get nervous when nobody else seems to be nervous. Absolutely, and I think what we need to understand is that we're pretty far along this bull market run. Through the first 73 trading days of 2025, the S&P 500 was down 10.2%, the fifth worst start in history. Now we've seen a significant move higher since day 74. How much longer can that run last? So I would anticipate some more short-term bouts of volatility ahead, whether it's due to the lack of trade agreements being announced, perhaps tariffs being more severe than when originally anticipated, or the Fed staying on pause for even longer than many are currently forecasting right now. That could all create more volatility. But I think each part of that volatility brings more investors back into the market. Mohit, what do you say to those folks who come on the show and they're, they're bulled up, they're more constructive. And honestly, Mohit, I think they basically tell me, 'Listen, Josh, just don't overthink this. The reason the market's higher is because the fundamentals look good: solid earnings, solid economic data, and a Fed that seems to want to cut later in the year.' What is your response to that? I think there's a lot of merit to that and that certainly can hold that we can continue to see, you know, equity markets do well. We continue to see credit markets do well. But I think what is also interesting is that in the last, call it, 15, 17 years, post the GFC, generally buying the dip has always worked out. And I think many factors have been behind it, but one of the factors continues to be around ongoing large fiscal deficits, as well as a strong monetary policy support through quantitative easings. Whenever there has been a big stress, you have seen both the fiscal authorities as well as monetary authorities come to the rescue. I think where we are, as we think about kind of where we are, we recognize that because of high debt to GDP for the US federal government, you have some constraints at the fiscal level in order to be able to address the next crisis with larger fiscal deficits. Same thing, you know, with the Central Bank. I think the QE would be somewhat less easier to do next time around, given the prior inflation or concerns around inflation that the prior QEs may have created. So in that context, we recognize that I think certainly you could have an environment where earnings continue to deliver and equities do well, but the balance of risk seems to have shifted to the downside. And I think the last point I would highlight also is that a lot of optimism is being built around the idea that we will realize the productivity enhancements because of all the investments in AI related chips, energy, all of that. 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