Gold and Copper Lead Metals Rally, Dollar Weakens: Markets Wrap
(Bloomberg) — The record-breaking rally in commodities gained fresh momentum as gold, copper and silver hit all-time highs amid a weaker dollar and rising geopolitical tensions.
Gold climbed 2.7% to $5,564 an ounce, boosting this month’s gain to about 29%. Silver extended this year’s advance to 66%, after surging 148% in 2025. Copper jumped as much as 7.9% on the London Metal Exchange and Brent crude climbed to its highest level since September. All these assets are priced in dollars so they benefited from the greenback’s decline. The Australian dollar — a proxy for commodities — gained for a ninth day, the longest winning streak in a decade.
Treasuries fell amid concern that rising commodity prices will add to inflation. Adding to market tensions, President Donald Trump warned Iran to make a nuclear deal with the US or face military strikes worse than the attack he ordered last June. MSCI’s Asian share benchmark rose along with US and European stock futures following largely positive earnings from megacap companies such as Tesla Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.
“Global markets are trading with a clear lack of conviction,” said Hebe Chen, an analyst at Vantage Markets. “Rising geopolitical tensions around Iran and a volatile US dollar are adding to the sense that macro risks remain unresolved, keeping investors in a cautious, wait-and-see mode.”
With tech earnings sending mixed signals and scrutiny of AI spending intensifying, markets are favoring selective positioning over bold risk-taking until clearer signals emerge. Volatility in bond and currency markets has risen as uncertainty grows, driven by Trump’s threats toward European allies over Greenland and his administration’s attacks on the Federal Reserve’s independence.
All those risk factors have fed into more demand for haven assets such as gold.
What Bloomberg strategists say:
Gold’s near 30% rally this month and silver’s eye-popping 60%-plus spike have the two precious metals close to their steepest such rallies on record. The relentless momentum will be making traders concerned that these seemingly unsustainable surges will end with very ugly and sustained reversals.
— Garfield Reynolds, MLIV Team Leader. For full analysis, click here.
The dollar halted Wednesday’s bounce as the return of the so-called debasement trade outweighed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s affirmation of the strong greenback policy.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropped 0.3%. The index slid for a seventh time in nine sessions, putting it in line for the worst month since April. The dollar hasn’t acted like a haven currency for a while as investors prefer tangible havens such as precious metals, DoubleLine Capital chief executive officer Jeffrey Gundlach said in an interview with CNBC.
Elsewhere, Indonesian equities plunged deeper into turmoil after MSCI Inc.’s warning over a possible market downgrade sparked the worst two-day rout in nearly three decades.
“The market needs a clearer plan from the regulators on what they’re going to do to reach a consensus with MSCI, and the plan must be communicated regularly so investors can keep track of it,” said Aldo Perkasa, head of research at PT Trimegah Sekuritas Indonesia.
On Iran, Trump said the fleet of US ships he’d ordered to the region, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, is “ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.”
Trump has repeatedly warned Iran that the US might launch another attack, but those threats have recently been linked to Iran’s deadly crackdown on protests rather than its atomic activities. The US leader has previously said Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated” in the strikes last June that targeted three facilities across the country.
“Concerns are building, but the environment points to measured caution, not a full retreat,” said Francis Tan, chief Asia strategist at Indosuez Wealth in Singapore. “The unclear signal on rate cuts keeps markets uneasy.”
Corporate Highlights:
Nvidia Corp., Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc. are in discussions to invest as much as $60 billion in OpenAI, the Information reported. SAP SE forecast cloud revenue will grow in 2026 as customers shift from older technology. Microsoft’s spending surged to a record high and cloud sales growth slowed. Meta’s robust advertising business, which boosted its current-quarter outlook above estimates, is making it possible for the company to invest at record levels on artificial intelligence this year. Deutsche Bank AG closed out a record year for profit with higher trading income and announced a new share buyback, in a boost to Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing a day after a raid on the lender’s Frankfurt offices. Samsung’s chip unit blew past expectations with a more than five-fold profit gain in the December quarter. Tesla Inc. revealed plans to invest $2 billion into Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, while reporting higher-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter. Nokia Oyj’s fourth-quarter adjusted profit fell about 3% from a year earlier Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
S&P 500 futures rose 0.2% as of 3:56 p.m. Tokyo time S&P/ASX 200 futures were little changed Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.3% The Shanghai Composite rose 0.2% Euro Stoxx 50 futures rose 0.2% Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.3% The euro rose 0.3% to $1.1986 The Japanese yen rose 0.2% to 153.06 per dollar The offshore yuan was little changed at 6.9417 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin fell 1.3% to $88,155.04 Ether fell 2.2% to $2,949.74 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced two basis points to 4.26% Japan’s 10-year yield advanced one basis point to 2.245% Australia’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 4.84% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.6% to $64.19 a barrel Spot gold rose 2.8% to $5,568.51 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Winnie Hsu, Abhishek Vishnoi, Yihui Xie, Bernadette Toh and Jake Lloyd-Smith.
©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
