Precious Metals Talking points 090825: StoneX weekly gold, silver round-up; Gold tariff Order; tightening silver

StoneX Precious Metals Weekly Front Desk Presentation

Rhona O'Connell, Head of Market Analysis, EMEA & Asia

 Tel: +44 203 580 6115 / mobile +44 7384 833897

8 September 2025

StoneX Gold & Silver round-up for StoneX Bullion

Weekly roundup for StoneX Bullion      Executive Order puts all raw / semi-manufactured gold on to the zero-tariff list – for those nations with whom there is a reciprocal agreement

• Gold has cleared $3,600 on continued momentum trading, now enhanced by the Executive Order last Friday that clarifies which gold tariff numbers are on the zero list
• Silver been put onto the list of Critical Materials in the United States, which helped to fuel the surge through $40 while gold’s move has now ferried it through $41, the highest since end-September 2011
• Conditions are also tightening (see the chart of the spot-December spread, below) and COMEX inventories have risen by 6,558t in the 12 months to end-August, a rise of 69%, to 16,118t.  They have stabilised since.
• Gold ETFs have added 66t since the start of August
• The dollar remains under pressure while the yield curve steepens further; see below
• Continued concerns over the aggressive mood music from the White House towards the Fed are adding fuel to the fire
• A 25-point rate cut is more than fully priced into the market; the next FOMC meeting is next week, September 16^th – 17^th; and will include the projections for the fed funds target.  Last week’s Nonfarm payroll numbers were much lower than expected…
• … and came with a 258k downward revision to the previous numbers.
• The dollar immediately came under pressure and this also helped to boost gold

• Outlook:  For the much longer term, silver has a robust fundamental outlook but for now, it is overbought above $41 and needs to correct and consolidate.  The London market has tightened again as some participants appear to be trying to get metal into the States on fear of tariffs.  The solar market remains oversupplied but still has a constructive future, while AI and vehicle electrification will also help to keep the market in a pre-investment deficit.  Gold is pricing in concerns over Fed independence and the avalanche of comments from the C-Suite in the leading US banks is raising the stakes.

US fed funds rate – markets pricing in 112% chance of a cut next week and a 79% chance of 50 points by end-October

Source: Bloomberg

The latest Executive Order with partial respect to the metals markets, was signed last Friday 5th September and clarifies the tariff numbers that are in the relevant Annex.  These now include all the relevant tariff numbers that cover gold in unwrought and semi-manufactured form.  We need to treat this with care because the wording in the Executive Order itself uses terms such as “I may be willing” to apply a zero rate, although we can be pretty sure that gold will be fine.  Another element of uncertainty is that the Order refers to those countries with which the States already has reciprocal agreements in place.  This is not currently the case with Switzerland so it is possible that the Swiss refineries may still have something of a headache.

Note also that silver and the PGM are on the zero-tariff list.

Silver tightening in London- and has been since the markets started worrying about tariffs

Source: Bloomberg

In an increasingly febrile financial environment, the Executive Order adds to the effort to eject Lisa Cook from the FOMC (and all that that entails) as key to the latest move in gold, taking it through $3,600.  The show of strength in China last week, with the presence of a number of key Eurasian leaders, especially Russia and North Korea, did not go unnoticed.  Then of course we have momentum traders etc, which is inevitable in a sharp move.  Comments that it is all about the Fed rate cuts and US debt levels are fair, but they are narrow.  In our view the fate of the Fed’s independence is a more important influence here.  The Federal debt is now at 124% of GDP at $37.4Tn against a limit of $40Tn.and the net interest on this debt currently amounts to $1.05Tn.    The debt ceiling may be hit within the next few weeks so Congress will need to take action. This also leaves the Fed between a rock and a hard place when it comes to balancing inflationary forces against the cost of debt servicing (not to mention the dual mandate) …   the European Central Bank is also in difficulties, but for different reasons.

Simmering in the background has been the banking system; there is the legacy of failures in the States in early 2023 followed by the implosion of Credit Suisse, but the increase in shadow banking in the States is a worry – and the relaxation of regulatory rules in that sector a week ago is something else to keep an eye on.  Then of course we have the continued heavy gold net purchases by the official sector – slightly slower this year, but strong, nonetheless.  In context, the official sector has been taking in over 1,000tpa since 2022, and may yet hit that level this year for the fourth consecutive year -  and this compares with annual mine production of ~3,600tpa.  So those demand numbers look pretty chunky, but in our view it is the signal that the banks are sending to the market by virtue of those purchases (i.e. be wary…) is more significant than the level of the tonnage per se.  Bear in mind also that spot turnover in a typical year in the OTC markets is 100-times mine production, give or take.

Repeated from last week’s note:

Silver’s potential insertion into the Critical Minerals list; implication

To qualify for inclusion in the Critical Minerals list (which was set up in  President Trump’s first term) a commodity must meet three criteria:

                It must be deemed essential to the US’ economy or its defence

It must be vulnerable to supply chain disruption, including restrictions associated with foreign political risk, abrupt demand growth and other geopolitical risk elements

It must be vital to manufacturing applications including agriculture, consumer electronics, currency, energy, healthcare and technology.

The list is updated every three years and the 2025 iteration has now been drafted; silver is on the proposal along with copper, lead, rhenium, potash and silicon.  The US Geological Survey’s report includes the following: “The concentration of mineral commodity production in a few countries and the high degree of reliance of the United States on imports from these countries increases the risks associated with foreign supply disruptions”.   The USGS applies two criteria; the potential effects of foreign trade disruptions on the US economy; and whether there is a single producer of the commodity in the US.  As far as silver is concerned the USGS included the following: “Silver’s probability-weighted net decrease in U.S. GDP is largely due to a scenario in which Mexico stops silver exports to the United States—a high impact ($435 million), low probability (4 percent) event.

So we have a situation where industrial demand for silver is expanding and will keep the metal in a global pre-investment deficit; and the tensions between the US and Mexico and Canada are also pertinent.  Based on the UN’s trade figures, during 2024 Mexico and Canada accounted for 49% and 18% of US silver imports respectively, comprising 2,823t and 1,070t from a total of 5,813t.

US: silver imports, 2024

Source: UN Comtrade, StoneX

The S&P, gold and the dollar

 

 

The S&P, gold and copper

Gold, one-year view; approaching the April high

Gold:dollar correlation; tightening again after some slackening off; now at-0.62

Source: Bloomberg, StoneX

 

Silver, one-year view; now overbought

Source: Bloomberg, StoneX

US yield curve: steepening as the short end prices in rate cuts while the longer tenors are rising on fears of a longer-term inflationary impact; overall levels are lower, however

Source: Bloomberg, StoneX

COMEX gold inventories, tonnes

 

Source CME via Bloomberg, StoneX

 

 

Gold in key local currencies.

Source: Bloomberg, StoneX

Gold:silver ratio, year to-date

Source: Bloomberg, StoneX

Gold COMEX positioning, Money Managers (t) –

 

 

COMEX Managed Money Silver Positioning (t)

 

Source for both charts: CFTC, StoneX

CFTC: -gold; a large jump in outright Managed Money longs, adding 64t (12%) while shorts contracted by just 3t to 108t.  Silver added 449t (6%) to 8,246t with some sizeable short covering (silver is usually vulnerable to sizeable short-covering due to its innate volatility), shedding 19% of total, or 467t to 1,948t.

ETF – big gold gains last week; year-to-date net gain now exceeds 1,000t.

Gold: the latest figures from the World Gold Council, up to last Friday 5^th August, show a massive gain of 34.9t in the week.  Some 24.8t of this was in North America, with a 9.9t gain in Europe and a very small loss in Asia of 0.2t.  World gold mine production is 3,661t (Metals Focus figures).  Globally 45.1t went in and 10.2t came out.  Total holdings, 3691.5t, a year-to-date gain of 1,002.4t.

Silver:  The Bloomberg figures suggest that the net ETF creations in H1 2025 were 1,761t, of which 989t were in June.  In other words, 56% of the net gains to that point were in one month.  Looked at another way, on an unweighted annualised basis, June uptake would be equivalent to 11,864t, or the equivalent of five months’ silver mine production.  There were net additions of 541t in July and a further 524t in August to a total of 25,070t, according to Bloomberg, but the first week of September has seen net redemptions of 9t to a total of 24,980t for a year-to-date gain of 2,704t.  World mine production is just less than 26,000t.

	8 September 2025	Previous week	% change	Year-to-date	Range Jan 2024 onwards		Range as %
					Min	Max
Gold (pm LBMA price)	3,594.55	3,429.15	4.82%	35.83%	1,985.10	3,594.55	81.08%
Silver (LBMA price)	40.75	38.80	5.01%	38.54%	22.09	40.97	85.49%
Platinum (pm LBMA price)	1,392.00	1,347.00	3.34%	51.14%	920.00	1,474.00	60.22%
Palladium (pm LBMA price)	1,130.00	1,094.00	3.29%	22.69%	852.00	1,297.00	52.23%
S&P 500	6,481.50	6,501.86	-0.31%	9.73%	4,688.68	6,502.08	38.68%
$:€	1.1717	1.1686	0.27%	12.58%	1.0244	1.1806	15.25%