Happy Thursday, GoldBuzzers!

Wednesday was a twelve-figure day in precious metals, and it confirmed the pattern this war has followed from the start. One sentence from the NATO summit in Ankara knocked $600 billion off gold and silver in 90 minutes, unwinding the only rally the conflict ever gave them.

Today I walk through why escalation keeps hitting metals instead of lifting them, where the real selling pressure came from, and the levels that decide what happens next.

Ok. Let’s get into it. ⬇️

Gold fell more than one percent Wednesday to around $4,078 an ounce, its lowest since July 2, while silver dropped nearly four percent to around $58.31, a level last seen in December 2025.

The trigger was President Trump declaring the interim peace agreement with Iran over at NATO's summit in Ankara, hours after US airstrikes on Iranian targets and the revocation of Iran's oil sales waiver.

Oil jumped more than five percent, reviving inflation worries, and markets now put a 66 percent chance on a September Fed rate hike, up from 62 percent Tuesday.

One counterpoint in the selling: China's central bank just posted its largest monthly gold reserve increase in more than two and a half years.

Wednesday gave us one of those sessions that shows how fast this market can turn. It doesn’t give me any pleasure to say it, but the end of the ceasefire that I predicted 3 weeks ago in Rick’s Personal Take on June 18th, has come to pass. 

Speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara, President Trump declared the interim peace deal with Iran "over." Within 90 minutes, gold and silver shed roughly $600 billion in combined notional value, measured against all the above-ground metal in the world.

Gold dropped about $80 an ounce inside two hours, touching $4,041 before steadying. Silver took the harder hit, falling as much as four percent to $57.56, its lowest level since December 2025, before clawing back above $58.

By now, GoldBuzzers know this war has rewritten the old playbook. Escalation has knocked metals down since the fighting started, and the only sustained rally came when the ceasefire was announced in June. Wednesday was that trade unwinding. The peace premium came out of gold and silver in 90 minutes, and the mechanism was the same one that has driven this entire stretch.

Oil is that mechanism. Crude jumped more than five percent on Trump's remarks, and higher energy prices feed directly into inflation expectations.

Inflation expectations feed directly into rate expectations. Futures markets now price roughly a two-in-three chance of a Federal Reserve rate hike by the end of September, up from the day before, and better than one-in-three odds for the July meeting just three weeks out. Higher rates raise the cost of holding metal that pays no yield. That math has beaten the fear trade at every escalation point in this conflict, and it beat it again Wednesday.

The selling had real weight behind it. World Gold Council data showed more than 74 tonnes of outflows from gold-backed ETFs, the heaviest net selling since September 2022 apart from the 84-tonne episode during March's Iran war selloff. TD's Bart Melek noted the correction looks like long liquidation rather than fresh short positioning, which means the bears have not even fully shown up yet. Read that either way you like. It leaves room for more downside if they do, or it means the decline lacks conviction sellers.

There is a case for the second reading. Rhona O'Connell at StoneX argues that most of the weak-handed and speculative holders have been washed out over the past six months, which gives gold some room to run once the headline pressure fades. Gold has come a long way down from its February peak above $5,000, and the demand drivers underneath have not moved.

Central bank buying and physical demand did not change on Wednesday. What changed is the short-term rate outlook, and that outlook has flipped twice in the past month already, first on soft jobs data, now on oil.

For traders, the levels matter now. Gold printed bullish candles off its lows near $4,041, and the $4,000 round number sits close below as the obvious battleground if selling resumes. Silver needs to hold the $57.50 area that stopped Wednesday's slide. A close back above $60 would take the immediate pressure off.

For long-term holders and stackers, the question is simpler. Nothing about Wednesday changed the supply picture in any way, the deficit story in silver, or the reasons central banks keep buying gold. If the pattern of this war holds, metals fall on escalation and rally on peace, which means the next durable move up likely needs a headline out of Ankara or Tehran, not out of the Fed.

The Fed minutes landed Wednesday afternoon and gold barely moved on them, which tells you the market has already made up its mind about what matters this week. The next 24 to 48 hours belong to headlines out of the Gulf. Watch oil first, metals second.

That’s all for this Thursday, folks. See you on Sunday.

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Rick Adams
Founder, GoldBuzz
rick@goldbuzz.com