Gold, Silver Fall as Rate-Hike Betting Jumps on Strong Inflation Data

BULLION PRICES fell in volatile trade in London on Tuesday, with industrial precious metals platinum and palladium holding firmer than gold or silver as betting on the Federal Reserve raising US interest rates jumped following strong US inflation data, while global stock markets rallied further from the worst weekly drop since March.

South Korea's tech-heavy Kospi index jumped 4.4% from its lowest level in 8 months, but US AI chipmaker Nvidia lost another 1.6% in premarket trade after sinking 4.3% in New York on Monday amid the 'Chinese spy' scandal engulfing CEO Jensen Huang.

Market-based odds that the Fed will raise rates by 0.25 points in December firmed around 85% but yesterday's betting on 'no change' flipped into 15% odds on a half-point hike after the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Consumer Price Index rose 3.7% last month from October 2025, the fastest 12-month inflation since this spring's 3-year highs.

Gold fell as low as $4033 per troy ounce after the CPI data, marking its 4th day of near-$100 swings in the past week's 5 sessions.

"Outside of a new Trump wildcard/policy mistake" says precious metals strategist Nicky Shiels at Swiss bullion refining and finance group MKS Pamp, "rallies keep getting sold as US data, inflation & war risks keep the Fed (and ECB) on a hiking path."

With US core inflation also hitting the highest since May on today's data, silver joined gold in erasing all of Monday's gains, trading back below $52 per troy ounce − an 11-month low when hit at the end of October.

But platinum and palladium − both of which continue to find their largest single uses in autocatalysts to reduce harmful emissions from fossil fuel engines − held above last week's finish, albeit with platinum prices down 2.4% from a 3-week high of $1587 per ounce hit in Asian trade overnight, while palladium held 3.0% beneath last Thursday's spike to 2-week highs at $1066.

Base metal copper meanwhile lost 1.3% to re-touch Friday's 3.5-month low, while crude oil sank 3.5%, taking global benchmark Brent to its cheapest since the end of August, after US President Trump said the war on Iran is "effectively over".

With the Democrat Party's big win in last week's mid-term elections widely attributed to the Iran conflict and high fuel prices, a Republican member of Congress today began impeachment proceedings against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for failing to seek proper approval for the war.

The USA will impose sanctions against the International Criminal Court in The Hague, confirmed Hegseth's Trump cabinet colleague Secretary of State Marco Rubio overnight, unless the ICC rescinds its arrest warrants for current Israeli Prime Minister and US ally Benjamin Netanyahu, now in a "state of panic" according to a former advisor over losing power to opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot in last week's elections.

US Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt has now left Singapore en route to the Middle East, where 2 other US carrier strike groups are already operating.

The European Union vowed a "swift and united response" against Iran after France accused Tehran of the cyberattack which broke hundreds of supermarket fridges and wasted tens of millions of Euros of food.

Led by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council today agreed to establish a command base in member state Kuwait, extending the GCC's unified military capacity to the north.

China is now following last week's deployment of 100 naval and coast guard vessels around Taiwan with "area denial" drills, the Defence Ministry in Taipei said today, with the Liaoning carrier group practicing so-called A2AD manoeuvres designed to stop "an outside force from intervening in a conflict" according to Reuters.