Gold Hits 3-Month Low as Asian Tech Stocks Sink Again

PRECIOUS METALS prices fell further on Thursday, with gold setting new 3-month lows as Asian tech stocks sank once again and the cost of energy rose as the US-Iran and Russia-Ukraine wars showed no sign of ending.

Brent crude futures jumped 2.8%, rising within $3 per barrel of May's 4-year peak of $115, after Tehran said it will target US military bases if what it called "illegal" tanker traffic continues to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Following yesterday's meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Russia today said it shot down 800 Ukrainian drones overnight, and at least 1 person died in heavy missile attacks on Kyiv.

China's CSI300 share index meantime continued last week's Asian tech stock plunge, sinking to new 14-month lows, while Korea's chip-heavy Kospi lost 3.5% to test its lowest close since April.

US and most other Western government bond prices rose, pushing down the yield offered to buyers of 10-year US Treasury debt to the lowest in a month at 5.04% per annum while comparable German Bund yields fell to a 7-week low beneath 3.35%.

But borrowing costs for France, Italy and Greece rose, with the 10-year OATS yield in Paris leaping to a fresh quarter-century high above 5.11% amid fresh protests against budget cuts and the high cost of living − protests which last weekend descended into the worst rioting and looting in decades.

Urged to pass a new budget this month by its European Union partners, France outspent its 2025 government revenues by 5.1% of gross domestic product, with its outstanding debts equal to more than 115% of GDP.

With gold prices for London settlement dropping as low as $4058 per troy ounce overnight, platinum also touched a 3-month low at $1577 per troy ounce, while sister-metal palladium − also finding its single largest use in autocatalysts to reduce harmful emissions from fossil-fuel engines − touched its lowest spot market price since June 2025, halving from this January's 3-year high.

Despite the drop from quarter-century highs in US bond yields, against which gold is often negatively correlated, gold has now erased all of August's steep rebound, down more than 13% from late-summer's 3-month high and dropping 27.2% from the all-time high touched at the end of January.

Silver in contrast today bottomed 25 cents above last week's 3-month low of $55.40 per ounce, trading more than 50% below January's all-time peak of $121.

Gold in Shanghai also set a new 3-month low in Yuan terms overnight, setting its first 2.15pm auction price beneath ¥880 since 29 July.

After shrugging off Wednesday's drop in Asian shares, US tech and AI-related stocks headed for a fall at Thursday's open as excitement faded over Elon Musk merging TSLA with SPCX.