Gold & Precious Metals Corner

Thursday, 2026-09-24 · covering the last 24h

Market signal

Gold breaks 50-day support as hot US data hardens October hike bets. Spot gold extended Wednesday's slide on Thursday, breaking below its 50-day moving average and touching a two-week low near $4,250–4,265 before steadying around $4,270, as weekly jobless claims fell to 197,000 (versus roughly 204,000 expected) and Fed Governor Waller said flatly there would be no 2026 rate cut — together pushing the market-implied odds of an October hike to roughly 70%, up from about 55% a day earlier. A rebound in oil added a further inflation-pressure clause to the move, while the dollar index held firm near 101 and Treasury yields stayed elevated. Silver eased further too, changing hands near $65.30 (down about 1%) after Wednesday's sharper drop, leaving the gold/silver ratio little changed in the mid-60s. Platinum steadied near $1,750–1,758 following Tuesday-Wednesday's slide, while palladium held in a $1,255–1,295 band. Miners extended Wednesday's losses, with GDX and the South African-linked names again the softest as the group continued to track gold rather than any name-specific news. Kitco AM Report · Eastern Herald

Upstream — miners, streamers & supply

Kinross trims 2026–27 guidance on weather and metallurgical setbacks, leans harder on buybacks to compensate. Kinross now expects 2026 and 2027 attributable production of roughly 1.84–1.86 million gold-equivalent ounces, 2–3% below the low end of its previous range, after a run of winter storms disrupted mining and milling at La Coipa in Chile and Round Mountain in Nevada underperformed on higher-than-planned copper grades and weaker recoveries. The company is stockpiling the copper-rich ore for possible future processing and partly offset the cut by lifting its 2026 shareholder-return target to 50% of free cash flow from 40%, having already repurchased about $520m (17.3 million shares) of stock year to date. Kinross release · Mining.com

The Sibanye-Stillwater USW strike at Stillwater East and the Columbus, Montana complex is now past three weeks with still no talks reported between the company and the roughly 400–420 affected PGM workers over healthcare costs and incentive pay; no other company-specific upstream news broke in the window. USW

Physical & official flows — central banks, ETFs & bullion

Indian jewellers turn cautious into the festive season as price swings stall discretionary buying. The World Gold Council's Kavita Chacko reports that gold jewellery demand has softened in the run-up to Diwali as August's rally and subsequent pullback left shoppers in wait-and-watch mode, with retailers replenishing only against realised sales rather than building inventory; wedding-related buying has held up better, though with a continuing structural shift toward lighter-weight pieces. Local discounts to the landed price widened to about $78/oz as of 11 September, from $51/oz in August and $34/oz in July, as exchange-for-new-jewellery flows boosted domestic supply. World Gold Council (Kavita Chacko)

No new central-bank purchase disclosures, weekly ETF flow data or COMEX/LBMA inventory updates were published in the window; those series update on their usual weekly or monthly cadence, and the already-reported August figures — 20.2 tonnes added by the PBoC and a record $18bn month for global gold ETFs — stand unchanged. Wednesday's widened silver COMEX-London EFP spread has not been followed by any new lease-rate print, so it remains a developing signal rather than confirmed stress.

Silver & PGMs — the industrial complex

No new industrial-demand, recycling or autocatalyst data broke in the window. The Silver Institute's sixth-consecutive-deficit forecast and the WPIC's platinum-palladium substitution outlook, both already reported, stand unchanged; Thursday's platinum and palladium moves tracked the broader dollar- and yield-driven complex (see Market signal) rather than any new fundamental input.

The Chatter

Florian Grummes (Substack, via a Kitco interview): Grummes argues the secular gold bull market remains fully intact and that the current Fed-driven pullback is consolidation, not a trend change; he frames the technical and sentiment backdrop as still constructive and counsels patience over chasing the next leg higher. Post

Krishan Gopaul — World Gold Council (Goldhub): Responding to reader questions after several central banks relocated gold this year (the Dutch central bank's transfer of roughly 86 tonnes to London among them), Gopaul argues the moves reflect diversification of storage and a push for liquidity in a crisis, not preparation to sell — DNB itself said it does not expect to deploy the metal. Post

Vince Lanci — GoldFix (Substack): In a preview post titled "The US Has 5 Years of Silver," Lanci argues that at current drawdown rates the country's usable silver stock is only a handful of years deep, framing today's tight physical market as a multi-year structural setup rather than a short-lived squeeze. Post