Gold, silver surges after sharp selloff, up over 2% from one-month lows

Gold and silver rebounded more than 2 per cent on Tuesday after a sharp selloff that was triggered by the nomination of ‍Kevin Warsh as the next ​Fed chair and higher margin requirements at CME Group.

Spot gold climbed 2.2 per cent to $4,767.33 per ounce by 0318 GMT, after touching a near one-month low on Monday. Bullion scaled a record high of $5,594.82 on Thursday.

US gold futures for April delivery were up 3 per cent at $4,791.10 per ounce.

"It's a reasonable call that this is somewhere around fair value ​potentially, if you consider that we saw a market behaving fairly irrationally for a few weeks there," said Kyle Rodda, a senior market analyst at Capital.com.

 

"The current prices take gold and silver back to where they were, early in the second half of January."

Gold rose nearly 13 per cent in January in its biggest monthly gain since November 2009, while silver jumped 19 per cent.

"The markets endorsed Warsh's nomination by US President Donald Trump as someone relatively credible and so we saw the dollar move on that basis and again, that was kind of like the pin that popped the big precious metals," Rodda added.

CME Group raised margin requirements on precious metal futures after Monday's market close.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Monday the closely watched employment report ‌for January would not be released this ​Friday because of a partial shutdown of the federal government.

The House of Representatives, though, was due to convene on Monday to take up legislation, with a final vote expected on Tuesday. Unlike last year's record 43-day shutdown, which caused an economic ‍data blackout, the Commerce Department is funded until September 30.

Investors expect at least two Federal Reserve interest rate cuts in 2026. Non-yielding bullion tends to perform ‍better ‌in low-interest-rate environments.  

Spot ​silver rose 2.8 per cent to $81.61 an ounce. It had hit ‍a record high of $121.64 on Thursday.

Spot platinum climbed 0.6 per cent to $2,134.10 per ounce after hitting ‍a ‍record high of $2,918.80 ‌on January 26, while palladium lost 0.5 per cent to $1,711.0.