Silver holds ground above $70 following rare one‑day slide of nearly 9%

U.S. stocks slipped for a third straight session on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 closing down 0.14% at 6,896.24. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.24% to 23,419.08, and the Dow fell 94.87 points, or 0.20%, finishing at 48,367.06.

Tech weakness continued to drag. Nvidia logged a second straight loss, as did Palantir Technologies, both of which have been major engines behind the market’s AI trade. Advanced Micro Devices also gave up ground.

Still, those three names remain some of 2025’s biggest gainers. Nvidia is up 39%, Palantir has rocketed 139%, and AMD sits 78% higher year-to-date.

Tuesday’s pressure came after the Fed dropped its December meeting minutes, revealing a split in the room. Officials were divided on the 25-basis-point rate cut, and there was debate on how aggressively to cut going forward.

European equities roared to fresh highs on Tuesday, with the Stoxx 600 index closing up 0.7% at 592.78, marking a new record after punching past the 590-point level earlier in the day.

The rally was broad, but the heavy hitters came from mining and defense.

London’s FTSE 100 finished at 9,940.71, up 0.75%. France’s CAC 40 hit 8,168.15 (+0.69%), Germany’s DAX closed at 24,490.41 (+0.57%), and Italy’s FTSE MIB jumped 1.14% to 44,944.54. Spain’s IBEX 35 also gained 0.93%, ending at 17,354.90.

Mining stocks led the charge, with Fresnillo up 6% in London. Anglo American, Antofagasta, and Glencore all rose around 3% each, riding the wave of surging metal prices.

Silver’s still recovering from Monday’s chaos, when it briefly hit a record before collapsing into its biggest daily drop since 2021. The bounce today helped shore up sentiment across materials stocks.

Defense names also clawed back losses, with Renk and Rheinmetall both up around 2%, after getting clipped Monday on signs of progress in Trump-Zelenskyy peace talks over Ukraine.

Traders had pulled back on defense bets at the start of the week, but Tuesday saw them creeping back in as negotiations dragged on with no final framework yet agreed.

Copper’s in beast mode. The metal jumped as much as 3% to $12,594 a ton on Tuesday, pushing its winning streak to eight straight days, the longest since 2017.

After nearly hitting $13,000 on Monday, copper’s cooled off slightly, but it’s still up over 40% this year, making 2025 its best run since 2009.

This isn’t some fluke bounce. Traders are panic-shipping metal into the US, trying to beat potential import tariffs. That scramble is tightening supply across the rest of the world, sending prices through the roof.

With everyone hedging for 2026 disruptions, the market’s turning into a game of musical chairs.

Meanwhile, the US dollar is down about 8% this year, which makes copper cheaper for non-dollar buyers, and that’s just added fuel to the rally.

But it’s not just tariffs driving the squeeze. This year’s been a mess for miners. Accidents hit operations in Indonesia, Chile, and the DRC, choking output.

Add to that China’s energy crunch slamming aluminum smelters, and zinc production taking a hit, and you’ve got a metals market full of landmines.

Back in November, Mercuria’s team flagged exactly this. They said 2026 could see an extreme global copper shortage, and if this pace holds, that warning’s looking more like a preview.

The onshore yuan just punched through the 7-per-dollar mark, landing at 6.9900 on Tuesday, its strongest level since 2023. That might not sound like much, but it’s a big deal.

This market is tightly managed, with a daily reference rate and a strict 2% trading band, and this move signals clear comfort from Chinese authorities with a stronger currency heading into 2026.

The rally came as the dollar dipped slightly and Chinese exporters rushed to settle year-end foreign-exchange deals, flooding the market with greenback sales.

Traders say state-owned banks stepped in and bought dollars once the yuan broke the barrier, helping to steady things a bit. But the selling pressure was heavy.

Now that the offshore yuan already broke 7 last week, the onshore follow-through gives weight to the view that Beijing is done resisting appreciation, at least for now.

The last time the onshore yuan hit this level was back in 2023, and back then, state banks were actively pushing against the rise. Not this time.

Goldman Sachs sees the yuan hitting 6.85 in 12 months. Bank of America is even bolder: 6.8 next year. Analysts say the optimism around Chinese assets, especially with stocks rebounding, has taken pressure off the central bank to defend the yuan.

Even so, there’s nuance. While the yuan has gained over 4% against the dollar in 2025, it’s actually down 3.8% on a trade-weighted basis, according to the official currency basket index.

So against the rest of China’s trading partners, the yuan isn’t quite flexing as hard.

Silver’s on the mend after Monday’s 9% nosedive, the sharpest one-day drop in over five years. The metal rebounded to just under $75 an ounce on Tuesday, keeping it up nearly 33% for the month despite the hit.

A global supply crunch continues to support prices, even as traders lock in profits from this year’s blistering rally.

Gold also edged higher Tuesday after suffering its worst drop in two months, as investors reacted to signs of overbought conditions and liquidity gaps.

But even with the sell-off, both metals are still tracking their strongest yearly gains since 1979, fueled by a trio of Fed rate cuts, big central-bank buying, and inflows into ETFs.

Cheaper borrowing makes non-yielding assets like gold and silver more attractive, and that tailwind hasn’t gone away.

Over in Asia, Chinese stocks are putting on a show. The MSCI China Index is up 28% this year, and it’s on track to beat the S&P 500 by the widest gap since 2017.

What started as a narrow tech rally has exploded into something bigger; gold miners, drugmakers, and gaming stocks are all surging. The rise mirrors global themes like AI hype and commodity momentum, but also highlights some uniquely Chinese plays like innovation incentives.

That said, not everything’s shining. Utilities and property developers are still dragging, a reminder that China’s housing crisis and deflation risks haven’t gone anywhere.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s back in focus. The funding rate just hit its highest level since October 18, according to CryptoQuant. That’s trader-speak for: people are piling into long bets on Bitcoin in the perpetual futures market.

On Monday, the OG crypto flirted with $90,000 before falling back, missing the stock market’s holiday rally. But behind the scenes, the big buyers aren’t slowing down.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy confirmed it snapped up $109 million in Bitcoin between Dec. 22 and 28, adding to its earlier $2 billion buying spree this month.

Altogether, Strategy has bought more than 220,000 Bitcoin in 2025, spending about $59 billion. Its average cost is now in the red at around $100,000 per coin, a signal of just how much conviction Saylor’s team has, even through the volatility.