Gold, Silver Rise as Fed 'Can't Wait' to Cut Rates, Trump to Meet Putin
Thursday, 8/07/2025 16:08
The PRICE of GOLD extended this week's rebound on Thursday as more officials from the US Fed said they now want to cut interest rates, while Russian President Putin agreed to meet US President Trump to discuss the war in Ukraine amid Washington's tightening sanctions and trade tariffs.
Gold peaked within $3 per Troy ounce of $3400 in late-Asian trade today, edging back in London trade but clearing around $3380 at the City's 3pm auction, some 2.5% higher from last Thursday's fix.
Silver also neared 2-week highs against the Dollar, peaking at $38.50 per Troy ounce with a 6.0% jump from
silver's copper-tariff news drop of 7 days ago.
"Recent policy changes have created uncertainty...We don't have perfect clarity," said San Francisco Federal Reserve chief Mary Daly in a speech yesterday.
"But the truth is central banks rarely have perfect clarity, and
we can’t wait for it to act."
"The economy is slowing," said 2025 voting member Neel Kashkari, head of the Minneapolis Fed in an interview, echoed by Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who called
last week's sharp downgrade of previous US jobs data "somewhat typical of turning points."
The
UK gold price in Pounds per ounce meantime fell back to £2520 as Sterling rose despite the Bank of England cutting its key interest rate by 0.25 points as widely expected.
Four of the BoE's 9-person committee voted to hold rates, and another voted for a half-point cut despite the Bank itself forecasting that UK inflation will continue rising in the near-term.
Amid a growing furore in India against Trump's trade policies,
The Economic Times meantime reports that the subcontinent's
state-owned oil refineries are "pulling back" from buying Russian crude amid Trump's threats to hit the world's 5th largest economy with still-greater tariffs, already set to hit 50% three weeks from today.
"You're going to see a lot more. You're going to see so much secondary sanctions," said Trump to reporters today, even as the Kremlin claimed that "at the request of the American side, [we] have effectively agreed to hold a high-level bilateral meeting in the coming days."
Moscow's MOEX index of Russian stocks jumped 5.0% on news of the Trump-Putin meeting.
Crude oil steadied after 5 losing sessions, with Brent trading at the lowest since end-June.
Putin yesterday repeated his demand for the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the country's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, plus official renunciation by Kyiv of ever joining NATO in future.
"It is alarming that our neighbors – Poland and the Baltic countries – are
acting in a very intimidating and hostile manner," said Putin ally President Lukashenko of Belarus, whose troops are part of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, without giving specifics.
Former Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg, now Finance Minister of Norway, says he is
reviewing an investment in an Israeli military supplier by Oslo's $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund "in light of the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the West Bank," prompted by a report by newspaper
Aftenpost.
London's stock market fell 0.6% after the BoE rate cut, contrasting with solid gains in Frankfurt, Paris and Milan as the gold price in Euros rebounded within €15 of Tuesday's 6-week high of €2931.
China's CSI300 index ended Thursday unchanged around 1-week highs while the price of gold in Shanghai reverted to trading above London quotes in Dollar-equivalent terms, showing a premium in line with the typical incentive for new bullion imports of $7.50 per Troy ounce.
New data from the People's Bank today said that the central bank of gold's No.1 consumer nation added bullion to its foreign exchange reserves for the 9th month in a row in July. But it made the smallest addition during that period so far, adding less than 2 tonnes to a new record above 2,300 tonnes.
Ahead of today's swingeing US trade tariffs on Chinese goods, the world No.2 economy's total exports rose 7.2% per year by Dollar value in July, separate data said Thursday, while imports jumped 4.1%.
That trimmed China's monthly trade surplus with the rest of the world below $100 billion for only the 2nd time since Trump won re-election as US President on a trade-tariff ticket last November.
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