Hello and welcome to our market week preview, where we take a look at the economic data, market news, and headlines likely to have the biggest impact on pricing and market momentum for gold, silver and platinum, as well as key correlated assets.

Gold Market Update

Gold prices remain under pressure as expectations for tighter monetary policy and financial conditions have become extremely firm. While the yellow metal has seen some sharp rallies over the last week, they have been transitory at best, and the five-day chart looks like a downward-descending staircase to the right.

While we can see some encouragement for gold longs in the fact that investors appear to have tried stepping in at multiple places to “buy the dip” in gold, a solid beam of support has obviously not been found yet. As of lunchtime on Monday, spot markets are attempting to put one in at $4,300/oz, but there can be little certainty that this time will hold where the last several failed.

The FOMC’s latest decisions about monetary policy will be announced with the close of the committee’s meeting on Wednesday, and at present, the Fed Funds Futures market implies a greater than 80% likelihood (in the market’s eyes) that the Fed will hike rates by at least +0.25%. That is up from a coin flip at 50% earlier this month.

There is little happening on the macroeconomic calendar between here and there, so gold’s trading week (along with other major assets like the US Dollar) will likely pivot around Wednesday’s announcement.

Silver & Platinum Market Updates

Silver prices, as is typical, have generally followed gold lower over the last several trading sessions, although with greater volatility at times. On September 10th—a day of steeper gold losses—silver spot prices shed more than –6%. And the white metal has failed to put in the optimistic (but ultimately temporary) rallies that gold has seen in the trading since.

With current pricing just below $64/oz, the gold-silver ratio has widened further to 68.2. Platinum likewise dropped precipitously in the middle of last week, losing $119/oz in a single session (by percentage points, a similar bleed to silver’s).

In slightly more concerning data, this drop pushed platinum below a key psychological line at $1,800, which the grey metal has yet to recover, currently trading around $1,775/oz.

Both silver and platinum have a much different global market and intrinsic value than gold, however, and while in theory (as is ever the case) gold could continue drifting or falling lower indefinitely, both silver and platinum face a deep perceived supply deficit around the globe this year.

Being such important inputs to myriad industrial processes worldwide—a use case gold cannot boast—we can be much more certain that both metals will eventually find a floor.

US Macro Data to Watch

Wednesday, September 16 at 2pm ET // FOMC Interest Rate Decision

[Consensus expects the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by +0.25%]

And that’s how the precious metals basket is performing to begin the week. As always, we wish you all the best of luck in your markets in the coming days, and we’ll look forward to seeing you all back here next week for another metals market preview.