Gold and silver prices just hit new highs—here's why
Gold and silver prices shot up on Friday, thanks to growing hopes that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon.
Gold is now at $4,210.94 an ounce, up 5.2% this month and on a four-month winning streak.
Silver smashed records too, jumping 16.6% in November to reach $56.78 an ounce as more speculators joined in.
What else is happening?
US gold futures closed even higher at $4,254.9 per ounce after Fed officials hinted at a possible rate cut and weak economic data rolled in following the government shutdown.
A brief technical outage paused futures trading for a bit, but investor demand stayed strong—especially for safe-haven metals like platinum (up 4% for the session, 10.7% for the week) and palladium (up 0.8% for the session, 5.6% for the week).
On the flip side, high prices made gold less popular in Asia during India's wedding season and after China changed its tax rules.