(Reuters) – Gold costs surged to a file excessive on Thursday, as fears of a worldwide commerce warfare sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats fueled safe-haven demand for the valuable metallic.
Spot gold rose 0.1% to $2,936.38 an oz. as of 02:36 p.m. ET (1936 GMT). It hit $2,954.69 earlier within the session — its tenth file excessive to this point this yr.
U.S. gold futures settled 0.7% greater at $2,956.10. Bullion has gained about 12% to this point this yr.
“Ongoing commerce tensions proceed to stoke inflation and progress issues and due to this fact safe-haven curiosity in gold,” stated Peter Grant, vp and senior metals strategist at Zaner Metals.
Trump stated on Wednesday he would announce tariffs associated to lumber, vehicles, semiconductors and prescribed drugs “over the following month or sooner.”
Since taking workplace on January 20, Trump has imposed a ten% tariff on Chinese language imports and a 25% tariff on metal and aluminium.
“We proceed to see central financial institution shopping for … all year long. That is one of many important underlying elements of assist. We’re additionally seeing ETF flows with three straight days of flows into the gold market,” stated Phillip Streible, chief market strategist at Blue Line Futures.
Trump additionally denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a dictator on Wednesday and informed him he needed to transfer rapidly to safe peace or danger dropping his nation.
A possible peace deal might briefly decrease geopolitical tensions and will weigh on gold for the quick time period, stated Grant. “The all-time excessive might maintain for a lot of weeks however I believe the uptrend in the end continues as there are adequate basic elements that stay very supportive.”
Minutes of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s final coverage assembly on Wednesday confirmed Trump’s preliminary coverage proposals had stoked issues over rising inflation, reinforcing the central financial institution’s stance to carry off on additional charge cuts.
Gold exports from Switzerland rose year-on-year in January as provides to the U.S. soared to the best in not less than 13 years, Swiss customs information confirmed.
Spot silver added 0.6% at $32.92 an oz.. Platinum rose 0.7% to $978.05, whereas palladium superior 1% to $978.02.
(Reporting by Anmol Choubey in Bengaluru; Modifying by Maju Samuel, Shilpi Majumdar and Alan Barona)
