Gold is trading at $2916.41, up 77 cents. Silver is trading at $33.04, up 9 cents. The U.S. CPI data released today showed consumer prices rising 2.8% year-on-year in February, slightly below the expected 2.9% and a decrease from January’s 3.0%. This marginally cooler inflation reading could provide some support for gold, as it might give the Federal Reserve room to consider a less aggressive approach to monetary policy tightening. Market participants will now be closely watching the Fed’s response and assessing the potential impact on gold’s trajectory.
The article “Gold’s Unusual Bull Run: A Market in Flux” by Ross Norman at Metals Daily Ltd, examines the recent perplexing behavior of gold, noting its decoupling from traditional metrics like inflation rates, the US dollar, and US Treasury bond yields. Typically, gold acts as an inflation hedge and has an inverse relationship with the dollar and bond yields, but in 2024 and early 2025, these correlations have broken down. Even silver, usually a leading indicator in precious metals, is underperforming, as evidenced by the rising gold-to-silver ratio. Despite rising prices, Asian demand for gold jewelry has remained strong, defying usual price sensitivity.
Norman’s article explores potential explanations for this unusual rally, dismissing the idea that gold has simply lost its correlations. He suggests two more compelling theories: a paradigm shift towards Eastern influence in price discovery, and the possibility of a large, opaque player driving demand. The lack of transparent data regarding the source of buying supports the idea of a significant entity whose identity remains a mystery, potentially operating through leveraged positions on the Shanghai Futures Exchange or an undeclared central bank buying program. The author forecasts a high of $3175 and an average gold price of $2898 in 2025.
