The April gold futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange exploded by 2.7% today, closing at $2,845.20 per troy ounce. Earlier, it even touched an intraday high of $2,853.20, which is an all-time high.
The metal’s volatility has been all over the place lately—gold tanked by 1.4% on Monday as tech stocks crashed, but it’s been clawing its way back ever since.
America’s Q4 2024 didn’t deliver the economic growth Wall Street hoped for because, per PCE data released on Jan. 30, GDP growth is weakening, and naturally, that’s dragging down the value of the US dollar.
On Jan. 29, the Federal Reserve announced that it would hold interest rates steady as Chair Jerome Powell tried to play it safe but still left markets expecting rate cuts later this year. Analysts say two rate cuts could be on the way, but no one can say for sure.
President Trump said last week that he would actually force the central bank into cutting, but Powell said during his press conference that he had no comments on Trump’s public tirades.
Trump’s tariff hammer jolts markets and boosts bullion
Meanwhile, starting February 1, the US will slap 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico. Trump made the announcement while speaking to reporters from the Oval on Thursday, where he explained that his reasons are drugs, deficits, and what he called the “massive subsidies” America is apparently handing out to these guys.
The market didn’t wait around to digest this news. The Canadian dollar and Mexican peso tumbled almost instantly while the Oval interview was still going on. US Treasury yields pulled back immediately, and West Texas Intermediate oil futures jumped to $73 a barrel.
“We have all the oil we need,” the president told reporters. “We don’t need their products.” Analysts have been warning for months that these tariffs could trigger serious inflation. MUFG’s research team expects Trump’s unpredictable policies to trigger waves of fear-driven investments in gold throughout 2025.
Peter Cardillo, a market economist, is betting gold will hit $3,000 an ounce soon. “We see the potential for much higher prices,” he said.
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