CaratPalladium runs 4.8 percent as the CPI rally sticks
Tuesday's close confirmed the turn: gold settled near $4,051, up 1.3 percent, silver at $58.66, platinum at $1,633 — and palladium, the board's quiet winner, up 4.8 percent toward $1,300. Markets now expect the Fed to hold on July 28–29.
The rebound this page reported at Tuesday's mid-morning held to the bell. Gold settled on Kitco's evening board at $4,051.20 — up roughly 1.3 percent from Monday's $3,997.40 close, with Trading Economics marking the session at $4,053.56, a gain of 1.29 percent. Silver finished at $58.66, up about 2 percent; platinum added 2.4 percent to $1,633. The board's outlier was palladium: up 4.8 percent on the day, touching $1,307 intraday before settling near $1,290 — the metal nobody's case plan mentions, posting the week's best number.
The fuel was the inflation print. June's headline CPI fell to 3.5 percent from May's 4.2, with consumer prices declining 0.4 percent on the month — by IndexBox's account the first monthly decline since 2020 — and the dollar giving back 0.6 percent. The rate-hike bets that had pressed metals for a month unwound in a single session; markets now expect the Federal Reserve to hold at its July 28–29 meeting. Cheaper money, cheaper dollar, and a month of cash-raising liquidation to reverse: the mechanics of Tuesday were not mysterious, merely fast.
The tail risk has not gone anywhere. Iran fired ballistic missiles at a US base in Jordan during the session, and crude sits at four-week highs with Brent up double digits inside a week on the Hormuz transit-fee proposal. Energy is the channel by which the next CPI print could undo this one — a soft June number bought the rally its footing, and a hot July number, oil-driven, would take it back. The metals are trading the Fed; the Fed will be trading the tanker lanes.
The frame for the trade is unchanged and worth restating: gold remains down about 6 percent on the month and up nearly 22 percent on the year, and the floor beneath $4,000 has now been probed three times since June and bought every time. Silver at $58 is still double its level of two years ago; platinum at $1,633 still carries the white-metal repricing story. Nothing about Tuesday moved the planning assumptions — it only re-confirmed the level around which they should be set.
The desk's view: two green sessions do not re-rate a market, and tags set on Monday's fear or Tuesday's relief are both mistakes — the desk said hold the prices steady through the whiplash, and holds that line. The date that matters is July 28, twice over: the Fed decides, and Bonhams hammers its no-reserve sale in California the same day. One of those two rooms will tell you more about the jewelry customer's autumn.