StoneX weekly gold and silver round-up and outlook; written for the retail sector

Market Overview and Price Movements

• Precious metals experienced sharp declines before attracting buy-side interest at lower levels (p. 1).
  • Gold fell briefly below $3,900/oz and stood at $4,018.10/oz on November 2, down 2.96% for the week and 31% from its January 29 peak (pp. 1, 7).
  • Silver dropped 11% intra-day to $48.9/oz before recovering to $58.66/oz, down 5.47% for the week and 59% from its January 29 peak (pp. 1, 7).
  • Weakness in high-tech stocks triggered distress liquidation in gold, pulling silver down alongside ongoing fundamental demand concerns in EVs, AI, and solar sectors (p. 1).
• Geopolitical factors and central bank actions influenced market dynamics (p. 1).
  • Russian official sector selling and Kazakhstan offloading highlighted gold's role as an insurance policy while deterring some prospective buyers (p. 1).
  • Bookmakers priced Democrats at 5:2-ON (2:5) to win both Congressional chambers in the US Mid-Term elections (p. 1).

Regional Demand and Market Fundamentals

• Physical demand in key Asian markets responded to lower metal prices (p. 1).
  • China's jewellery market was reinvigorated by lower international gold prices and yuan strengthening, with Shanghai trading at a slight premium to London (p. 1).
  • India saw increased festival buying ahead of Dhanteras and Diwali (Sunday, November 8), pushing local market prices to premiums over London (p. 1).
  • The Indian government issued silver import quotas of up to 6,000t over six months to alleviate potential local tightness (p. 1).
• Silver supply is projected to produce a surplus equal to seven weeks of global fabrication demand this year, expanding to eleven weeks when ETP liquidations are included (p. 1).

Federal Reserve Policy and Economic Outlook

• Fed Chair Kevin Warsh avoided explicit forward guidance, though markets interpreted his comments as signalling a potential December rate hike (p. 1).
• The FOMC announced plans to modify its meeting structure starting in fall 2027 to eight meetings annually, dedicating one meeting in 2027 and two in 2028 solely to long-term strategy without rate votes (p. 3).
• Official Fed statements upgraded the description of economic activity from "solid" to "strong," while reiterating a commitment to curb inflation that has exceeded targets for nearly six years (p. 3).

Exchange Inventories and Positioning

• COMEX gold inventories dropped to 721.5t on October 27, reaching their lowest level since the de-listing of the Enhanced delivery contract (p. 3).
• Managed money net long positioning in gold grew by 4.2t (1.3%) to 328t, marking the first weekly increase in nine weeks (pp. 3-4).
• Silver managed money net long positions declined for a fifth consecutive week by 29t (5.2%) to 516t, as 135t of new short positions outweighed 106t of new long buying (pp. 3-4).
• COMEX silver stocks fell by 73t to 10,443t, while silver ETF holdings rose by 90t to 25,156t (p. 4).

Asset Correlations and Commodity Prices

• Market correlations remained steady for S&P/gold (0.51) and S&P/copper (0.41), while silver-gold correlation eased to 0.73 and silver-copper fell to 0.31 (pp. 5-6).
• As of November 2, 2026, platinum traded at $1,629.94/oz (-28.41% YTD) and palladium stood at $1,271.77/oz (-25.94% YTD) (p. 7).