Gold, silver and bitcoin are all falling to their lowest levels of the year as a strong dollar and fears of interest-rate hikes heap pressure on the 'debasement trade'
Expectations for interest-rate hikes later this year have heaped more pressure on gold, silver and bitcoin.
The unraveling of the "debasement trade" has kicked into high gear over the past week, and angry investors can blame Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh.
Prices of gold, silver and bitcoin slipped below key psychological levels on Wednesday, with gold falling below $4,000 an ounce for the first time in seven months and silver breaking below $60 an ounce for the first time in about as long, FactSet data showed. Bitcoin also slipped below $60,000 for the first time since late 2024.
A strengthening U.S. dollar and fears of interest-rate hikes later this year under the Warsh-led Fed have been widely blamed for the troubles facing all three assets. In recent years, prices of gold, silver and bitcoin had climbed as a kind of protest vote against fiscal excesses and the idea that central banks had become more tolerant of inflation.
But Kevin Warsh's first appearance at the Fed's lectern last week has helped to convince some that he is taking a more aggressive approach toward taming inflation, according to Stephen Innes, a managing partner at SPI Asset Management.
The recent pressure on precious-metals prices marks a sharp reversal from their record-setting rallies earlier this year, when gold surged to roughly $5,600 per ounce and silver climbed past $121. At the peak, the metals even surpassed the "Magnificent Seven" group of technology stocks to become one of Wall Street's most crowded and dominant momentum trades.
Since then, the trade has lost much of its luster. Gold has fallen 28% and silver has retreated over 50% from their peaks in late January as a strong U.S. dollar makes the greenback-denominated bullion more expensive for overseas buyers.
At the same time, rising rate-hike expectations have helped to boost the U.S. dollar. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, a gauge of the greenback's strength against a basket of six major foreign currencies, has risen 2.8% so far this month, on pace for its largest monthly advance in almost a year, according to FactSet data.
The debasement trade had already been struggling before last week. Some of the weakness has been driven by retail investors pivoting away from gold and silver and into the hot new thing: semiconductor and memory-chip stocks, which have supplanted metals as the momentum trade of the moment.
"That is a shift in this large but fairly contained, very coordinated group that is all moving their large bets from meme stocks, crypto and precious metals and now into semis and Korean chip makers" such as Samsung (KR:005930) and SK Hynix (KR:000660), said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide's Investment Management Group.
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"The trigger [of the metals selloff] is the dollar strength, and the trigger of the dollar strength is the Fed, but it's almost being used as the excuse for investors to liquidate [precious metals] as a group," Hackett told MarketWatch via phone on Wednesday.
But the speed and magnitude of the selloff in silver and gold suggest that macroeconomic policy, particularly shifting expectations for interest rates and a stronger dollar, remains an important driver behind the recent moves.
"Silver has been hit by a sharp move higher in yields and the U.S. dollar, which increases the opportunity cost of holding metals," said Nate Miller, vice president of product development at Amplify ETFs, which offers the Amplify Junior Silver Miners ETF SILJ.
"Because silver sits at the intersection of a precious metal and an industrial input, it tends to move more aggressively than gold during periods of macro tightening, which explains the speed of the selloff," he said.
In gold's case, the threat of rising rates coupled with liquidations are "the primary culprit" for the sharp decline in the precious metal, said Ben McMillan, chief investment officer at IDX Advisors. In his view, however, the decline in prices could ultimately set the stage for a renewed bid in gold.
"This is a generational buying opportunity," he told MarketWatch on Wednesday.
The next level to watch for gold is $3,800 per ounce, said Peter Grant, vice president and senior metals strategist at Zaner Metals. That could provide another compelling buying opportunity. Grant expects the yellow metal to rebound to $4,500 an ounce this year.
But a rebound above $4,800 would be needed to revive investors' confidence that gold could move back toward its highs from earlier this year, he said.
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