GOLD and SILVER slipped further from this week's price rebound on Thursday as base metals, global stock markets and bond prices also fell but crude oil rallied after President Trump said the USA will now control sales of crude by Venezuela.

Gold dipped to $4420 per Troy ounce, a new record high when reached just before Christmas.

Silver prices meantime dropped to $74 per Troy ounce, a new all-time high as China and US trading drove the industrially-useful precious metal higher on Boxing Day.

"Only time will tell" how long the USA needs to "oversee" the running of Venezuela, says Trump in an interview with the New York Times after the White House said that Washington will control sales of Venezuelan oil "indefinitely".

With defense sector equities beating gold and silver since Trump returned to the White House 12 months ago, the President announced late Wednesday that he wants to stop US weapons manufacturers paying large dividends to shareholders or rewarding CEOs with large bonuses.

That saw US defense stocks reverse yesterday's initial 2.4% rise to lose 1.3% as a group from Tuesday's fresh record high on the S&P Aerospace & Defense Select Industry Index.

But the sector then rebounded in overnight trade after Trump again took to his TruthSocial account to declare that, "for the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars."

That saw shares in US defense giant Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) more than reverse yesterday's plunge with a 6.7% gain in pre-market trading, while UK giant BAE Systems (LON: BA) gained 5.5% and European defense stocks as a group rose another 0.6% to head for a fresh all-time high on the STOXX Europe Total Market Aerospace & Defense Index.

Following widely-ridiculed claims over Christmas that a "systemically important" US bank was about to fail because of taking a huge bearish bet against silver, a new rumour on social media claims that 800 tonnes of silver, plus "a significant quantity" of gold, have been "quietly" airlifted from Venezuela by Russia and China.

Trump meantime faced a split public at home, enraging some Democrat opponents, after an ICE officer shot dead an unarmed woman driver near a protest against ongoing immigration raids in Minneapolis.