By Samer Hasn, Senior Market Analyst at XS.com
Gold corrected today, losing 0.42% and hovering around $3625.
The move lower in bullion is largely tied to a light technical correction and the easing concerns about of the AI-driven market exuberance after Oracle’s surprise announcement.
Relief in the tech sector over inflated valuations reduced defensive demand for gold, creating room for more downside pressure.
While gold general upward trend might be still supported by growing confidence in the Federal Reserve’s rate cut trajectory.
The latest producer price index data reinforced those expectations, with both core PPI and headline PPI printing at -0.1% versus forecasts of 0.3%, a sharp miss that strengthened the case for multiple cuts. According to the CME FedWatch Tool, markets are now pricing around a 70% probability for a cumulative 75-basis-point reduction before year end.
Attention today shifts to consumer price inflation, with the annual CPI expected at 2.9%. A reading above expectations could complicate the rate cut narrative by reviving concerns that inflation remains sticky. U.S. Treasury yields edged higher in Asian trade as investors positioned cautiously ahead of the data, though analysts told Wall Street Journal that CPI numbers may not materially alter the Fed’s immediate policy path, given the upcoming meeting’s proximity and the broader trend of softening economic data.
On tech side, Oracle itself became a central story in markets. Shares surged 35% at Wednesday’s close after the cloud-services giant revealed it had secured four multibillion-dollar contracts with three different customers in the latest quarter.
According to The Journal, OpenAI signed one of the largest cloud deals in history with Oracle, committing to purchase roughly $300 billion in computing power over five years. That scale of spending underscores the boom in AI-related infrastructure, easing the concerns about a potential bubble. For equity markets, the news lifted sentiment across the tech sector, balancing fears of overheating with tangible revenue growth for cloud providers.
Meanwhile, geopolitical risks continued to underpin safe-haven flows into gold, oil, and defense stocks after Poland confirmed early on Wednesday that it had shot down Russian drones entering its airspace during Moscow’s overnight strike on Ukraine.
Nicholas Kristof in an opinion piece on The New York Times framed the incident as a threefold test: of NATO’s resolve in defending its territory against Russian provocations, of Donald Trump’s credibility given his unenforced threats of sanctions, and of Western military preparedness, as cost-effective defenses against drone warfare remain limited.
Most importantly, Kristof said: “If this challenge to NATO is met with nothing more than indignant tweets, he will escalate further.” In other words, escalation might come sooner or later, one way or another.