Gold Cuts April's Trade-War Leap to 6% as China Shuts, US GDP Falls
Wednesday, 4/30/2025 16:25
GOLD PRICES fell on Wednesday, ending the last day of April 5.9% higher in US Dollar terms in London − but losing $200 per ounce from last Tuesday's 'trade war' record of $3500 − after China's financial markets closed for a long weekend holiday following this month's surge in Shanghai's gold bullion and derivatives trading.
Ahead of US President Trump's 2nd April announcement of heavy trade tariffs on foreign imports, most especially from China, the US economy contracted by 0.3% annualized in January-to-March, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said in its first estimate today, thanks to GDP price inflation surging to 3.7%.
This month then saw jobs growth in the world's largest economy sink to the weakest since July, said private-sector service ADP Payrolls, more than halving from March's pace and missing Wall Street's consensus forecasts by almost 3/5ths.
Friday will bring the Bureau of Labor Statistics' official first estimate for
non-farm payrolls, a key gold trading event for short-term volatility.
With gold prices trading down near 2-week lows today before rallying to $3300 per Troy ounce at London's 3pm benchmarking auction, New York stock markets opened the session sharply lower, pulling both the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the broader S&P500 index back into the red ahead of quarterly earnings reports from major software brand Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and social-media giant Meta (Nasdaq: META).
Smartphone brand Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and e-commerce giant Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) − also expected to be badly hit by the US-China trade tariff war − are due to report tomorrow.
"Gold holds a special status among assets," says
a new commodities price outlook from international think tank and lender-to-governments the World Bank, "often rising in price during periods of geopolitical and policy uncertainty, including conflicts."
Calling the yellow metal "a popular choice for investors seeking 'safe haven'," the World Bank
forecasts that the price of gold will average "a new record this year before stabilizing in 2026.
"In contrast, the price of industrial metals is expected to drop as demand weakens amid mounting trade tensions and persistently soft activity in China’s property sector."
Finding almost 2/5ths of its end-user demand from industrial applications, silver lost 5.4% across April in London's bullion market, also falling hard today as China shut for its May Day holidays to lose as much as $1 before rallying to $32.50 per ounce.
Industrial precious metals platinum and palladium meantime lost 2.1% and 5.6% respectively across the month of Trump's trade-tariff shock, trading down to $972 and $931 per Troy ounce on Wednesday.
With both the Shanghai Gold Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange now shut until Monday for China's May 1st Labor Day holidays, the city's gold price benchmark fixed near a 3-week low beneath ¥779 per gram.
That was down 6.1% from
last Tuesday's Shanghai gold peak of ¥830, then its 9th new daily record high in a row.
After surging so far in 2025 on what local media are calling
a "gold fever" among Chinese investors, trading volumes in all SGE gold products today dropped for the 2nd session running, down another 40% to the lowest daily total in 5 weeks at barely 1/4 the size of Tuesday last week, when Shanghai trading set a 3-year high and global gold prices touched $3500 per Troy ounce.
Trading in SHFE gold futures also sank to only a quarter of last Tuesday's volume, down for the 5th session running to just 54.3% of April's previous daily average.
Beijing's Communist government is readying a list of US-made products which it will exempt from China's 125% trade tariffs, imposed during this month's tit-for-tat row with the new Trump administration in Washington, Reuters reports.
"I'm proud to be the President for the workers and not the outsourcers," said Trump at a rally in Michigan last night to mark his first 100 days back in the White House − "a President who stands up for Main Street not Wall Street.
"Our magnificent destiny is closer than ever before...you have no idea how close it is. Our golden age has only just begun."
While the US Dollar steadying Wednesday 1.0% above last week's 3-year low against the rest of the developed world's major currencies, gold priced in Euros still ended April barely changed, adding only 0.8% at €2906 per Troy ounce.
The
UK gold price in Pounds per ounce also lagged the Dollar price's 5.9% leap, adding 2.9% from end-March at £2480.
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