Silver and Gold Jump with Stocks on Trump's 'Stone Age Ceasefire' Claim

SILVER and GOLD began April trading at 2-week highs versus a falling US Dollar on Wednesday after US President Trump declared that Iran is seeking a ceasefire, but he may end the war within 2 or 3 weeks anyway, with or without a deal.

Crude oil prices dropped with interest rates in the bond market, while global stock markets rebounded.

"In a fairly short period of time, we'll be finished [putting Iran] into the Stone Age," Trump said at the White House late Tuesday. "It doesn't matter if they come to the table or not."

The President then repeated that Stone Age comment in a tweet on the TruthSocial platform he owns while claiming that Tehran's leadership has proposed a ceasefire.

Silver bullion prices rose above $75 per Troy ounce in early Asian trade, rallying more than 22.7% from last week's 4-month low.

Gold briefly topped $4760 per ounce, rising 16.0% from its 4-month low of 23rd March, before easing back $25.

Brent crude meanwhile dipped back towards $100 per barrel for the first time in a week, while China's CSI300 stock index joined rich-economy equities on the MSCI World Index and also Western government bond prices in rebounding to hit 1-week highs.

"Previously, the surge in energy prices driven by the Iran war had intensified inflation concerns and reduced expectations for rate cuts this year," says a precious metals note from Chinese bank ICBC.

"As prospects for a US-Iran ceasefire increase, weaker employment data could alter these expectations."

Today's private-sector ADP Payrolls report said the US economy added more jobs than analysts had predicted for March, but US and European financial markets will shut for Easter when the Bureau of Labor Statistics posts its non-farm payrolls report on Good Friday.

"Any NFP-driven volatility will need to be navigated carefully given thin liquidity," warns a note from Swiss bullion refining and finance group MKS Pamp.

Ahead of today's ISM PMI report for March, manufacturing surveys from Standard & Poor's for Japan, Europe and the USA all showed solid activity growth for last month, defying analyst expectations.

The USO oil ETF investment trust lost 2.7% at Wednesday's opening following Trump's ceasefire-and-Stone-Age comments, while the Van Eck DFNS defense-stock ETF rallied along with gold after falling hard during the first month of this new Middle East war.

Reports last week said US financial giant Citigroup is going to use London vaults operated by secure logistics firm Malca-Amit in its bid to join the market for clearing bullion trades in the world's central precious metals hub, while former London Fixing member Deutsche Bank has now become a market-making member of trade association the LBMA, cementing its return to precious metals after quitting the market more than a decade ago.

Major London bullion clearing bank HSBC lost 2 senior traders to crypto-firm Tether in November, but both have now changed their LinkedIn profiles to say they have left the El Salvador-registered business, which having issued over $180 billion of digital tokens is currently preparing for its first ever formal audit.

Wednesday's rally in bond prices pushed down 10-year borrowing costs for the US Treasury by more than 0.2 percentage points from Friday's 8-month high of 4.48% per annum.

Germany's 10-year Bund yield has meantime retreated by 15 basis points from Friday's jump to the highest since May 2011, making its steepest 3-session drop since February last year.

Ahead of Trump's ceasefire comments, Tuesday saw both the GLD and IAU gold ETF trust funds expand in size, the first simultaneous increase since 11 February, albeit by only 0.1% and 0.4% respectively from those gold ETFs' recent multi-month lows.