Silver pushed to a fresh record on Friday as buyers kept loading up and supply stayed tight. Spot prices moved up 2.3% to $69.6/oz, locking in a weekly jump of 8.1% after hitting $67.20 earlier in the session. The move capped a wild year where silver climbed 132%, far ahead of gold’s 65% rise.
Cryptopolitan has analyzed that strong investor demand is what kept pushing the gains, and the shortage in supply couldn’t let the market cool off.
Gold also moved higher. Spot gold rose 0.3% to $4,346.69/oz by late morning in New York, while U.S. gold futures added 0.4% to $4,380. Gold was set to end the week up more than 1%, helped by growing bets that the Federal Reserve will cut rates next year.
That call gained strength after new numbers showed inflation slowing and the labor market weakening.
Metals react to inflation data and investor flows
Other metals jumped too. Platinum added 3.2% to $1,977.85 after touching its highest level in more than 17 years on Thursday. Palladium moved 0.4% to $1,701.75 after hitting a nearly three-year peak earlier in the session.
Both metals were heading for weekly gains.
Phillip Streible of Blue Line Futures said “ETF flows (in silver) continue to dominate that theme as well as some speculation from the retail investor.”
He said the fresh macro data drove more demand toward metals after the U.S. consumer price report showed a 2.7% rise in November. Economists had expected 3.1%, so the softer reading strengthened the case for rate cuts.
The U.S. Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, the highest level since September 2021. Streible said, “We’ve seen the lower inflation data, the weakening labor report. It really reaffirms that the Federal Reserve should keep on their easing path. Second is a lot of the uncertainty around what central bank policy is going to entail.”
Traders kept pricing in at least two 25-basis-point cuts next year, based on LSEG data.
U.S. stocks move after AI volatility and new Oracle-TikTok deal
U.S. equities also pushed higher on Friday. The Nasdaq Composite gained 1.2%, the S&P 500 rose 0.9%, and the Dow added 259 points, or 0.5%.
Oracle led the move after a rough week where investors worried about its cloud business. That concern started when a report said a key backer had pulled out of one of Oracle’s data-center projects, a blow that also hit Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices.
Oracle shares jumped 8% after joining a group set to run TikTok’s U.S. operations. In a memo to workers, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said the U.S. unit will be overseen by a joint venture made up of Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. The deal is expected to close on January 22.
The agreement keeps TikTok alive in the U.S. after President Joe Biden signed a law requiring a divestment of the platform’s American division over national-security concerns. President Donald Trump had already extended the deadline several times and later signed an executive order approving a possible divestment plan for ByteDance.
Under the new setup, Oracle will check and confirm that TikTok follows “agreed upon National Security Terms”, according to the memo.
Micron Technology also rose, building on a 10% surge Thursday after the company issued strong revenue guidance. Shares were up more than 7% Friday, helping calm traders after days of volatility in AI-linked stocks.
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