Precious Metal Market Outlook & Bullion Trading Economic Trends

Exclusive Precious Metals Market Outlook and Recommendations

Index updated December 8, 2025

Blanchard's Bi-weekly Index

The Blanchard Bi-weekly Index is a roll-up of industry news and economic trends affecting the precious metals market and trading world.

Check back often for insights and commentary from our leading experts and contributors.

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Market Movers

Precious Metals

Gold has delivered a remarkable year for precious metals investors, notching over 50 new record highs and producing returns of 60%+ through late November. It’s not just gold that is having a record-breaking year. Silver is now the top performing asset of 2025, with an 89% gain since January. In a history making run, silver recently hit a new all-time high at $58.40 per ounce and is still climbing. Bank of America projects silver gains to $65 an ounce in 2026.

For gold, current market conditions are consolidative, with a strong bid under the market as buyers enter on any short-lived dips toward the $4,150 and $4,050 area.

Gold is broadly beating other major assets classes in 2025.

Gold	+61%
Emerging Market stocks	+30%
Developed Market stocks ex US	+29%
US stocks	+17%
Commodities	+16%
Balanced Portfolio	+14.9%
US bonds	+7%
Global Treasuries ex-US	+6.6%
U.S. cash	3.8%

Source: Bloomberg, World Gold Council

All Eyes on Fed Meeting

Traders are pricing in a 90% chance of a 0.25 percentage point interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s Dec. 10 meeting following the release of weaker economic data recently, which is positive for precious metals. President Trump announced he will share his choice to succeed current Fed chair Jerome Powell in early 2026. The President has strongly advocated for lower interest rates and its expected his new pick for Fed Chair will favor lower interest rates as well.

Key Takeaway: Additional interest rate cuts are expected in 2026 which will support the long-term uptrend in gold. Lower interest rates boost demand for non-yielding monetary assets like gold and silver.

Economic Update

The government shutdown is still having a delayed impact on economic data releases even though the government is back open. In the meantime, Wall Street is focusing on alternate private sources of information about the economy and jobs market.

In November, private-sector ADP payrolls tumbled by 32,000, while companies with less than 50 employees shed 120,000 jobs—that’s the biggest one-month decline since May 2020.
Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported 71,000 job cut announcements in November.
Layoff notifications submitted to comply with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Notices) rose to 38,000 in November from 30,000 in October, according to aggregation by Revelio Labs.
U.S. manufacturing activity slowed in November for the ninth consecutive month, according to the Institute for Supply Management. The ISM’s PMI report came in at 48.2, a decline from 48.7 in October. Any reading under 50 is a signal the manufacturing sector is contracting, not expanding.
Delayed inflation data revealed the core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index rose 0.3% in September. The annual increase slowed slightly to 2.8% from 2.9% in August, but still remains above the Fed’s 2.0% inflation target.

Key Takeaway: Available economic data about the labor market reveals that employers were shedding jobs in November, adding fuel to the fire for Fed governors to cut interest rates to support the flagging jobs market.

In the News

Gold back above $4,200 as Fed cut bets rise – Yahoo Finance, Dec. 8

“We still look for more rate cuts next year, which should push gold to $4,500 an ounce next year,” said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo.

Gold gains on Fed rate cut optimism, silver hits record high – CNBC, Dec. 4

″(Silver is) following the pathway of gold and many investors still believe that silver is quite cheap in relative terms,” said Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities. Melek cited structural deficits and rising demand for electrification as supportive factors for the silver market ahead.