Gold Price Slips, Trump 'Not Firing' Powell
Thursday, 7/17/2025 15:34
The PRICE of GOLD fell to 1-week lows versus a rising US Dollar on Thursday after President Trump denied he's about to fire Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.
Having
repeatedly called for the Fed chief to cut rates or face being sacked before
back-tracking on those demands, "The President
waved a copy of a draft letter at a meeting in the Oval Office with House Republicans," claimed the
New York Times yesterday.
But "We're not planning on doing it,"
Trump then told reporters at the White House.
"I don't rule out anything, but I think it's highly unlikely, unless he has to leave for fraud."
Gold spiked almost $60 per ounce on Wednesday's
NYT report, briefly touching 3-week highs at $3376 as the Dollar sank on the currency market.
But Trump's later comments − while referring to the increasingly partisan row over the US central bank's "disgraceful" $2.5 billion refurbishment of its Marriner S.Eccles headquarters and a building next door − saw the Dollar rebound and gold prices drop, sliding to $3312 as US trading began Thursday.
With New York's S&P500 stock index rising towards last week's new all-time highs on Thursday, the Dollar's FX rebound saw the gold price in Euros hold steadier than it did for US investors, trading just €10 per ounce lower for the week so far at €2860.
But
the UK gold price in Pounds per ounce slipped 0.7% from last weekend even though Sterling fell Thursday following worse-than-expected jobs data.
The UK's "hot inflation data" for June, published yesterday and showing annual inflation of 3.7%, "may increase caution over the pace of future rate cuts" from the Bank of England despite "mounting worries over economic conditions," says one London economist.
US inflation data in contrast came in weaker-than-expected this week, with the cost of living in the world's largest economy rising 2.9% per year on the 'core' measure, edging up only 1 tick from May's 4-year low.
Yet yesterday's Trump-Powell headlines saw longer-term US borrowing costs hit 5-week highs on the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond, easing back only 5 basis points on Thursday to 4.43% per annum.
That was
a 16-year high in US government borrowing costs when reached in late 2023.
"President Trump has crushed inflation," said Trump appointee William J.Pulte, chairman of government-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, last month, demanding that "Chairman Powell needs to resign, immediately" if he didn't cut interest rates.
But "if my sole objective were lowering borrowing costs, [then firing the Fed chief] would not be the way I would go about it," says Columbia University economist and former White House advisor Glenn Hubbard.
Silver prices meantime steadied today 3.6% beneath Monday's spike to new 14-year Dollar highs and 2.9% below
Monday's fresh lifetime high for the Euro silver price.
Fellow industrial precious metals platinum and palladium meantime hit new multi-year and multi-month highs respectively, extending their sudden outperformance of 'safe haven' gold starting in May.
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