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When the US military struck Iranian-linked targets near the Strait of Hormuz this week, the textbook safe-haven trade would have been to pile into precious metals. Instead, the exact opposite occurred. Silver tumbled to a three-week low of $71.81 per ounce on Thursday, settling around $73.20 — a decline of roughly 1.5%. By the close, the metal was changing hands at $73.34, down 1.7% on the session.
The culprit wasn’t a lack of geopolitical tension, but the specific channel it activated. The airstrikes, which Washington said were aimed at a facility threatening shipping in the vital waterway, sent crude oil prices surging roughly 2% in early trade. Higher energy costs rekindle inflation fears, which in turn reinforce expectations that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates elevated for longer. For a non-yielding asset like silver, that calculus is deeply damaging.
The dollar seized on the narrative. The US Dollar Index climbed to 99.288 — its highest since May 22 and near the week’s peak — making silver more expensive for overseas buyers. Fed Governor Lisa Cook added to the pressure by signaling that the central bank should hold rates steady for now, while not ruling out further hikes given tariffs, the Iran conflict, and AI-driven investment. Vice Chair Philip Jefferson echoed the view, calling the current policy stance appropriate as long as inflation risks persist. The dollar’s strength crystallized a dilemma: instead of serving as a crisis hedge, silver got caught in the crossfire of an energy-driven inflation scare.
That dynamic played out across the precious metals complex, but silver took the hardest hit. Gold slipped 0.8%, platinum lost 0.5%, and palladium shed 0.7%. The message was clear: geopolitics does not automatically boost bullion. What matters is which transmission mechanism the crisis opens. This time, the oil-inflation-Fed channel was wide open.
Beneath the short-term noise, the physical market tells a starkly different story. The World Silver Survey 2026 projects the sixth consecutive deficit year, with a supply gap of 46.3 million ounces — 15% wider than the previous year. Above-ground inventories have fallen by a cumulative 762 million ounces since 2021, providing long-term price support. Yet the industrial side is cooling: semiconductor and AI-related silver consumption is growing, but a sluggish photovoltaic sector is dragging overall demand. Analysts expect industrial offtake to dip roughly 3% in 2026 to about 639.6 million ounces.
Chartists see further downside risk after silver broke below $74, triggering technical selling that sliced through both the 50-day and 100-day moving averages. The Relative Strength Index now sits below 50, keeping the bears in control. Immediate support lies at $71.22; if that fails, the psychologically important $70 level comes into focus. On the upside, $75 represents the first resistance, followed by the $76 zone.
All eyes now turn to Friday’s US PCE inflation data, the Fed’s preferred gauge. A hotter-than-expected reading would further slash the odds of near-term rate cuts and heap additional pressure on silver. Meanwhile, the Hormuz negotiations remain unresolved — Iran is demanding a tolling system for the strait, while Washington insists on the removal of highly enriched uranium from Iranian soil. Until clear progress emerges, every fresh energy price spike poses another headwind for the metal.
A curious contradiction is playing out in the commodities market. The US military struck Iranian positions near the Strait of Hormuz, a tanker came under fire, and oil prices shot up around 2%. Yet gold, the traditional haven, took a sharp knock — sliding 1.47% on Thursday to $4,422 an ounce, with a intraday low of $4,397.86, its weakest in nearly two months.
The selling looks counterintuitive, but the logic is brutally straightforward: escalating energy costs fan inflation fears, and that keeps the Federal Reserve on a hawkish path. Higher oil prices feed into broader price pressures, strengthening the case for the Fed to hold rates elevated — or even raise them further. For a non-yielding asset like gold, that’s a direct hit to its appeal.
Fed officials drove the point home on Thursday. Neel Kashkari stressed that inflation control remains the singular focus. Lisa Cook said rates should stay steady for now and did not rule out additional tightening. Philip Jefferson judged current policy to be appropriate. Their collective message: no pivot in sight. With real yields on Treasuries still attractive, the opportunity cost of holding bullion has become punishing.
The dollar added to the pressure. The geopolitical shock triggered a flight into the greenback, making gold more expensive for buyers outside the dollar zone. That suppressed the safe-haven reflex that typically accompanies such crises. Gold now sits roughly 18% below its 52-week high of $5,450, reached in January. While it still stands 42% higher year-on-year — from $3,335 — the current pullback shows that its crisis-hedge credentials have limits.
The weakness is spreading across the precious metals complex. Silver lost 1.7% to $73.34, platinum fell 0.5%, and palladium declined 0.7%. The S&P GSCI Precious Metals Index, at around 5,962 points, has shed over 3.2% year-to-date. The message is clear: macro forces and dollar strength, not physical demand, are calling the shots.
The next test arrives later on Thursday with the release of PCE data — the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. A hotter-than-expected reading would further dim hopes for rate cuts and likely give the dollar another lift, a bearish scenario for gold. A softer print, on the other hand, could quickly turn sentiment. The metal has been trading in a tight $4,400–$4,600 channel for roughly ten days; the PCE numbers may determine which side of that range gives way.
Any fresh disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — through which about a fifth of global oil and LNG shipments pass — could amplify the rate-driven headwind. For gold to reclaim its safe-haven mantle, either the Fed would need to blink, or oil prices would have to stop feeding into rate expectations. Right now, neither appears likely.
Gold is locked in a multi-front battle that has kept it oscillating in a narrow range, with the metal changing hands at $4,481 an ounce on Thursday — 18% below its January peak of $5,450 and roughly 3.5% beneath its 50-day moving average of $4,643. The week’s macroeconomic data dump, headlined by the first-quarter GDP revision and the April PCE price index, could break the deadlock.
The preliminary GDP reading of 2.0% annualized growth already missed the 2.3% Wall Street consensus. Any upward revision to the PCE deflator within today’s second estimate would harden the stagflation thesis — a combination of slowing expansion and sticky price pressures that historically has been a powerful tailwind for bullion. Consumer inflation hit 3.8% year-on-year in April, the hottest pace since mid-2023, with core services inflation accelerating to 0.4% month-on-month from 0.1% in the prior quarter.
Yet that same inflation data is also fueling expectations of tighter monetary policy. CME FedWatch data shows a 67% probability that the Federal Reserve will not cut rates further this year, and a 47.4% chance of a rate increase by year-end; the odds of a 25-basis-point hike specifically in December have risen to 51%. With the fed funds rate stuck at 3.5% to 3.75%, non-yielding gold loses appeal as interest rate expectations climb.
The dollar is amplifying the headwind. The DXY index holds above 99, making dollar-denominated bullion more expensive for overseas buyers. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index slipped 0.7 points to 93.1 in May, with the present situation component dropping 3.2 points to 121.2 — a decline that reflects persistent price and energy concerns. While weak sentiment alone could support gold, when combined with rising inflation anxiety it tends to strengthen the case for a more hawkish Fed, muting any safe-haven lift.
Geopolitical tension adds another layer of complexity. Iran on Tuesday accused the United States of violating a ceasefire near the Strait of Hormuz, a flashpoint that would normally drive haven flows. This time, however, the same conflict is pushing oil prices higher and stoking inflation expectations, which in turn reinforces rate-hike bets — effectively neutralizing the geopolitical bid for gold.
On the demand side, a tariff shock from India is set to remove meaningful buying pressure. On May 13, New Delhi raised import duties on gold from 6% to 15%, splitting the increase between the basic duty (5% to 10%) and the agricultural infrastructure cess (1% to 5%). The move came after April imports surged 82% year-on-year to $5.62 billion, crushing the rupee, which has dropped more than 7% since January. The World Gold Council expects the tariff to slash Indian jewelry and bar demand by 50 to 60 tonnes this year, a decline of roughly 10%.
Offsetting that weakness is unprecedented buying from official institutions. Global gold demand reached $193 billion in the first quarter of 2026, a 74% surge year-on-year, according to the World Gold Council. Central banks added a net 244 tonnes to their reserves. Chinese bar and coin demand jumped 67% to a record 207 tonnes, while the People’s Bank of China’s holdings hit an all-time high of approximately 2,309 tonnes. Since 2022, central banks have been acquiring roughly 1,000 tonnes of gold annually — about five times the average pace of the previous decade.
This structural support has kept major banks bullish despite the recent pullback. J.P. Morgan maintains a year-end target of $6,000 an ounce, Goldman Sachs sees $5,400, and ANZ forecasts $5,600. But before any of those levels come into play, gold must first find a catalyst. Thursday’s twin releases — the GDP revision and the PCE price index, both at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time — will provide the next directional signal. A strong inflation print would deepen gold’s slide; a softer one could reignite the growth-scared bid that had traders piling into bullion earlier in the year.
The XRP ecosystem is flashing two contradictory signals: network activity is climbing sharply while the token’s price remains anchored below key technical levels. A surge of 4,300 new wallets appeared on the XRP Ledger within 24 hours — the fourth-largest single-day spike of 2026, according to Santiment — yet the spot market has barely budged. At the same time, the Ripple-linked stablecoin RLUSD hit an all-time high market cap of $1.7 billion, and a series of institutional partnerships has widened the infrastructure runway.
XRP changed hands at $1.34 on Friday, down 1.83 percent on the day and 9.73 percent lower over the past week. The token sits well below both its 50-day moving average of $1.39 and its 200-day moving average of $1.70, leaving it 28.59 percent in the red since the start of the year.
The jump in new accounts is more than a vanity metric. Before the recent burst, daily wallet creation had been hovering around 2,500. Active addresses also rose from 32,000 to 43,520 over the same period. Each new wallet on the XRP Ledger must be funded with at least 1 XRP as a base reserve, plus an owner reserve of 0.2 XRP per ledger object such as offers, trust lines, escrows, and payment channels. That capital requirement makes the wallet spike more meaningful than simple sign-up data — it represents a real allocation of value.
Still, the market has yet to reward the uptick. The next hard resistance sits around $1.40, and a broader supply zone extends to roughly $1.55. That upper band was where the most recent recovery attempt stalled after XRP touched a low of $1.27. A layer of overhead supply complicates any rally: roughly 3.75 billion XRP — a large portion of circulating supply — was acquired in the $1.37 to $1.45 range, meaning many holders could look to flatten positions as the price approaches those levels.
While the spot market drifts, the stablecoin side of the ecosystem is accelerating. RLUSD’s market capitalization reached $1.7 billion on May 22, nearly doubling within a single quarter. About 80 to 82 percent of the circulating supply resides on Ethereum, with the remainder on the XRP Ledger. Daily trading volume on the stablecoin recently exceeded $213 million, supported by more than 8,700 active wallets. To reduce concentration risk, Ripple plans to expand RLUSD to layer-2 networks including Base, Optimism, and Unichain via the Wormhole bridge.
British crypto custodian Copper has integrated RLUSD into its settlement and treasury workflows, allowing institutional clients to hold the stablecoin natively on both XRPL and Ethereum and use it in trading strategies. Separately, Ripple Prime completed its integration with EDX Markets on May 20, giving clients direct access to spot markets and perpetual futures liquidity. Michael Higgins, Ripple Prime’s international CEO, described the goal as building a safe bridge between traditional and digital markets; RLUSD is expected to eventually become the primary collateral for derivatives positions on EDX, letting financial institutions meet margin requirements directly through Ripple’s infrastructure.
Investor appetite for XRP exposure via traditional products is also growing. XRP-focused exchange-traded funds recorded net inflows of nearly $9 million on May 22, pushing total assets under management for all XRP-based financial products above $1.15 billion.
Behind the scenes, a technical deadline looms. The amendment dubbed “fixCleanup3_1_3” is scheduled to activate on May 27. It contains corrections for NFTs, Permissioned Domains, and the XRP Ledger’s lending protocol. So far, roughly 40 percent of validators have upgraded their nodes. Ripple CTO David Schwartz warned that those who fail to update on time risk triggering an amendment block — a scenario that could stall the network’s ability to process new features. The update is considered a prerequisite for scaling real-world asset projects, which already represent $3 billion in volume on the ledger.
The permissioned-dex capability, known as XLS-81, went live on the XRP Ledger in February 2026, allowing closed trading venues on-chain. That function targets banks, brokers, and other regulated market participants, broadening the ledger’s utility beyond simple peer-to-peer transfers.
The current picture is a study in contrasts. On-chain data shows rising grassroots interest, institutional rails are multiplying, and a major stablecoin is on a growth tear. Yet the price has failed to reflect any of that momentum. Whether the infrastructure build-out eventually lifts the token will depend on whether the wallet activity sustains, the protocol upgrade goes smoothly, and RLUSD continues its expansion. For now, the market is waiting for a catalyst strong enough to push XRP through the $1.40 resistance zone and reclaim its long-term trendlines.
Silver is heading into its sixth consecutive year of supply shortfalls, yet the metal can’t seem to catch a bid. On Wednesday, XAG/USD traded around $75.20 an ounce in European hours, recovering modestly from a near-two-week low of $73.10 hit the previous day. But the bounce looks fragile as two powerful forces—a hawkish Federal Reserve and a sharply revised deficit forecast from UBS—combine to cap upside momentum.
The latest wrench came from the Fed minutes released on May 20, which laid bare the central bank’s reluctance to ease. The policy rate was left unchanged at 3.50%–3.75%, but a majority of participants signaled that further tightening would be appropriate if inflation remains stubbornly above the 2% target. Many officials also wanted to remove language the market had interpreted as a dovish signal. For a non-yielding asset like silver, higher interest rates are a direct headwind, making bonds more competitive. The 10-year US Treasury yield surged to 4.69%—the highest in over a year—while the 30-year yield climbed to 5.2%. At the same time, the US dollar index hit a six-week high of 99.47, further discouraging buyers outside the dollar bloc.
Adding to the macro pressure, UBS delivered a sobering reassessment of the supply-demand balance. The Swiss bank slashed its year-end 2026 price target from $85 to $80 per ounce and cut its second-quarter 2026 estimate even more aggressively, from $100 to $85. But the crucial detail was the deficit revision: UBS now expects the global silver market to post a deficit in the high double-digit millions—roughly 60 to 70 million ounces—down from its previous forecast of 300 million ounces. The bank cited weaker photovoltaic demand, falling purchases of jewelry and silverware, lower investor flows, and slightly higher mine production expected at around 850 million ounces in 2026. The narrative of acute scarcity, which had helped underpin prices, has been significantly dialed back.
That industrial demand engine has been sputtering for some time. According to the World Silver Survey 2026, physical demand from industry dropped 3% in 2025 to 657.4 million ounces, and further erosion to 639.6 million ounces is expected this year. The solar sector is the main drag, as manufacturers reduce silver content per unit or substitute the metal outright. While demand from AI infrastructure, automotive electronics, and power grids remains constructive, it is not enough to offset the decline in photovoltaics. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East add a layer of complexity: higher energy prices could stoke inflation expectations and push the Fed’s rate path higher, indirectly punishing silver rather than providing a safe-haven bid.
Technically, the chart looks precarious. The relative strength index stands at 31—flirting with oversold territory—and the MACD is negative. After breaking out of its uptrend channel, silver could test support at $71 an ounce. On the upside, resistance is stacked at $76.33 and $78.25, levels that need to be reclaimed to signal a durable stabilization.
For now, the market’s attention is fixated on incoming inflation data, employment figures, and further Fed commentary. The $75 handle acts as a near-term pivot: holding above it keeps the recovery narrative alive, but with yields elevated and the silver deficit story softening, the burden of proof lies firmly on the bulls.