Gold prices surged to a fresh record high on Friday as worries about the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on the global economy continued.
Bloomberg reported that gold advanced as much as 3% to $3,175.07 an ounce, surpassing a previous peak reached earlier in the month.
US gold futures rose 3.2% to settle at $3,177.5, according to Reuters. Spot silver fell 0.5% to $30.88 an ounce, platinum shed 0.5% to $932.41, and palladium slipped 1.4% to $918.45.
Financial markets have been gripped by the Trump administration’s constant back-and-forth tariff plan.
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“We remain quite positive for gold,” Dominic Schnider, head of commodities and Asia Pacific currencies at UBS Global Wealth Management, told Bloomberg Television. “The next step is going to be, at some point, the Fed coming in — and that gives the next leg up for gold.”
US stock market sees sharp drop
The US stock markets fell again on Thursday after gaining big on President Donald Trump’s reprieve on tariffs to most countries on Wednesday, April 9.
The S&P 500 fell 5.8 per cent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,746 points. By midday, the Nasdaq composite had sank 5.8 per cent.
“Investors are sobering up and realizing that the US-China ‘food fight’ will probably get worse before it gets better,” Michael Bailey at FBB Capital Partners told Bloomberg. “We’re waking up to the fact that a 10% base tariff will sting, 90 days could fly by and then the pain of higher tariffs could return, and China is fighting back hard.”
Donald Trump’s tariffs
Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he was pausing his sweeping tariff measures, which he announced on April 2 for most countries, for 90 days.
He, however, raised the tariffs announced on China to 125% on Wednesday, further escalating a high-stakes confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.
On Thursday, the White House clarified that the total tariff on China stands at 145% as the 20% tariffs due to fentanyl are also to be included.
China has warned that it would not “sit back” and that American tariffs go “against the whole world” and would “seriously damage the rules-based multilateral trading system”.