GOLD and SILVER rallied but then fell back on Thursday, mirroring the US Dollar's exchange rate movement as precious metals showed the strongest 12-month gains of any major asset classes on the 1st anniversary of Donald Trump winning re-election to the White House.

Since Trump's "red sweep" election victory over Democrat candidate Kamala Harris was confirmed on 6 November 2024, the price of gold bullion has risen by 50.0% in US Dollar terms.

Topping both Barack Obama's first win in 2008 (42.3%) and Jimmy Carter's victory in 1976 (31.1%), that's the strongest 1-year rise for gold following a presidential election since Richard Nixon won re-election in November 1972 (52.1%) − a term which ended in resignation and disgrace over the Watergate scandal.

Silver has meantime risen 53.1% over the past 12 months, its strongest gain following a US presidential election since Barack Obama's first victory (78.5%) amid the global financial crisis.

With platinum up 60.0% today and palladium prices rising 35.5% since 6 November 2024, precious metals outperformed all other asset classes since Trump's second win, including US stocks, Bitcoin and AI chipmaker Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA), while the total return to investors in US Treasury debt was negative.

"Gold and silver's recent corrections have seen both metals testing support" from their steep up-channels starting mid-August, says bullion-market analyst Rhona O'Connell at brokerage StoneX.

"The uptrend had run too far too fast," agrees a note from the mining industry's World Gold Council, pointing to "overbought momentum levels" and "volatility spikes similar to previous major peaks."

Trading at $3992 per Troy ounce around Thursday's 3pm London bullion benchmarking auction, gold has dropped 8.9% from last month's 'double top' at fresh all time gold highs near $4400.

Silver has meantime lost more than 11.8% from its new all-time high, also set 3 weeks ago Friday, trading down towards $48 per Troy ounce in late-afternoon trade in London today.

The Dollar rallied a little Thursday after pulling back from near 6-month highs on its trade-weighted DXY index against other major currencies, snapping its sharp rally from mid-September's 3.5-year low.

Today's action cut the DXY's drop from 1 year ago to 5.4%, a loss almost matched by the Dollar Index's drop over the 12 months following President Trump's 2016 election victory.

The DXY dropped twice as hard in the 12 months after Barack Obama's first win.

Elsewhere Thursday, a report from Bloomberg claimed that the central bank of Cambodia has agreed to store some of the south-east Asian nation's sovereign gold reserves in Shanghai following the Chinese government's invitation last month.

Giant Chinese state-owned bank and London bullion clearer ICBC is set to build new storage facilities at Hong Kong airport, similarly expanding on the Politburo's call for the 'internationalization' of China's domestic gold market with bullion vaults added outside the mainland.

Swiss bullion refining and finance group MKS Pamp is also "expanding operations" in Hong Kong, reports the South China Morning Post, "drawn by the city's strengthened focus on its financial services and commodity trading sectors."

Gold's market-leading gains since Trump's 2nd election win extends the pattern already seen for gold prices over the first 100 days of the Trump 2.0 administration.

Across the past 16 presidential elections, gold and silver have both risen 9 times over the following 12 months.