GOLD PRICES shot to new record highs over $4000 per ounce on Wednesday while silver jumped within 60 cents of its all-time $50 tops and platinum took its 2025 gains above 86% as global stock markets and cryptocurrency Bitcoin also jumped to fresh record prices.

"The many obvious negatives in [financial] markets are just not sticking," says an opinion column at FT.com.

"That means it's probably time to brace for a melt-up in the final months of this year."

"FOMO is in full swing," according to analysts at UK bank Barclays, pointing to the 'fear of missing out' driving further inflows to US equities.

"Wall Street calls it the debasement trade," says the Wall Street Journal, "[because] investors are pouring money into gold, bitcoin and other alternative assets in reaction to fears over the dollar's future."

"Fed Chair Jerome Powell says rate cuts are needed to support the creaking labor market, but that may be questionable," says Reuters columnist Jamie McGeever.

"What's less debatable is the whoosh they are giving to already booming asset prices."

"By almost any measure, gold appears overbought, yet the market shows little price restraint," says an update from Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi's precious metals division.

"While the US government shutdown, coupled with rising expectations of further rate cuts, provides a positive backdrop for gold through Dollar weakness, it appears that opaque or unreported central bank buying may also have gathered momentum."

Wholesale gold trading in China − the precious metal's No.1 mining, consumer, central-bank buying and importing nation − will resume tomorrow with global gold prices around $200 per ounce higher than when it shut last Tuesday for the country's National Day holidays.

"Downside risk could come from the US finding a solution that would end the government shutdown," says French investment bank Natixis.

"Potential for peace in Gaza" offers another possible headwind for gold above $4000, says brokerage StoneX's analyst Rhona O'Connell.

With gold rushing to $4050 per Troy ounce on Wednesday − up 4.2% for the week so far − silver prices rose to $49.44, adding 3.0% from Friday night's finish amid further talk of a supply squeeze in London, the world's central trading and storage hub for wholesale bullion.

"In my 38 years in precious metals I've never seen the 1-month lease rate for silver exceed 10% [per annum]," says Bruce Ikemizu of the Japan Bullion Market Association.

"The rise is likely due to significant supply and demand factors."

Platinum 1-month lease rates eased back this morning towards 13% per annum, sharply below this summer's dramatic spike but holding at what would have been all-time highs for borrowing platinum in London prior to 2025's US trade tariffs uncertainty.

The price of platinum today hit 12.5-year highs in Dollar terms at $1678, more than 3.3% higher for the week so far and gaining 86.4% since New Year.

Sister metal palladium has meanwhile risen 62.8% so far this year, spiking to fresh 2-year highs Wednesday at $1440 per Troy ounce.

New Fed appointee and White House economic advisor Stephen Miran yesterday said that the relative calm in US Treasury bond prices "is bearing out my argument" for dramatic cuts to Dollar interest rates.

Latest polling says President Trump's approval rating among US voters is falling, with most opposing his deployment of National Guard troops to cities including Chicago and Portland.