New Fed and tariff developments could sap tailwinds for precious metals in Q2  – TD Securities’ Melek

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By Ernest Hoffman
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New Fed and tariff developments could sap tailwinds for precious metals in Q2  – TD Securities’ Melek teaser image

(Kitco News) – While the nomination of Kevin Warsh for Fed chair has removed some uncertainty from the market, it has also complicated the rate path, while the potential for clarity on the trade tariffs front could remove another key driver for precious metals, according to Bart Melek, managing director and global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities.

In an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Thursday afternoon, Melek discussed the recent volatility in precious metals – including yesterday’s dramatic and sudden selloff that saw gold plunge $200 in a matter of minutes.

“I think, unfortunately, volatility will be a fact of life here for the foreseeable future,” he said. “One big issue is we're not quite sure what U.S. data will come out as. The other day, we had employment numbers that were stronger than expected, [Thursday better than expected] in inflation. At the same time, we're seeing the Chinese nation basically going off for their new year celebrations, and that means maybe less liquidity in this market, and we're not quite sure whether there is a lot of appetite for the so-called debasement trade for now.”

Melek noted that when gold and silver go to record highs, significant corrections come with the territory. “And now, we're not sure if interest rates are going to go down,” he continued. “We're not sure if there's going to be continued appetite from Asia for these precious metals as a hedge.”

Asked about TD Securities’ forecast that gold will average $5,000 in Q1 but not move higher, Melek said that’s actually a pretty good scenario for investors.

“I do think that $5,000 our quarterly average for next quarter, in fact, is still a pretty robust price by historical standards,” he said. “What I think will get us there is the fact that after Mr. Powell leaves office, we are going to get a Fed chair who's going to be a little bit more predisposed to lowering rates, particularly on the short end of the curve. But the reason we don't have it shooting massively higher like some in the market have, is because we're not all that sure that he is ready to sacrifice inflation or allow higher inflation at the altar of incremental marginal growth in employment and the economy. I think there is a lot of uncertainty. Once we have the new chair in place in May, we'll see what he thinks is appropriate for the market. But at this point, not so sure that we're going to see anything happen on the monetary front.”

Turning to retail demand, Melek said he expects to see more profit taking. “There isn't a lot of enthusiasm from speculative traders at this point, so I think this market is trying to consolidate its recent gains.”

Melek was then asked about his view that the recent volatility in silver was driven by a gamma squeeze.

“That's something that I think has ended for now,” he said. “But what we've seen is a lot of enthusiasm, particularly on the retail side, for silver. We fundamentally like silver a lot; this is a market that's going to stay in deficit for quite a long time. But what we've seen not that long ago is retail investors going very aggressively into the options market and buying call options on publicly traded funds. And the result of that is that market makers, folks that issue a lot of those funds had to stay so-called ‘delta-neutral’, they didn't necessarily want to take directional risk. They went into the market that was already fraught with illiquidity and inventory issues and had to buy physical to hedge against that risk. They were short on the option side, so they went long physical to balance things out, and that I think caused a squeeze.”

“It got very aggressive, 2x, 3x leveraged funds in there,” Melek added. “Then we had some bad news, as far as the [precious metals] market was concerned, as President Trump told us that he is looking at Kevin Warsh as the new Fed chair, who as I said is more of a hawk on the inflation side ,and it's not all that clear that he will put metal to the pedal on interest rates.”

Melek was then asked what the effect of clarity on tariffs could do for the metals.

“That is something that we're all talking about in the metals trading community,” he replied. “If we get some sort of resolution in June where these tariffs are maybe postponed for another time where it's decided that it's not accreted for the United States, I think a lot of the inventory builds we've seen in the U.S. for a lot of these critical metals – copper being one of them that has seen a lot of inventory, silver another one – could reverse course and we could have loosening up of the market in quite a material way, reversing a lot of those constraints that have propelled it to record levels.”

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Ernest Hoffman

Ernest Hoffman is a Crypto and Market Reporter for Kitco News. He has over 15 years of experience as a writer, editor, broadcaster and producer for media, educational and cultural organizations. Ernest began working in market news in 2007, establishing the broadcast division of CEP News in Montreal, Canada, where he developed the fastest web-based audio news service in the world and produced economic news videos in partnership with MSN and the TMX. He has a Bachelor's degree Specialization in Journalism from Concordia University. You can reach Ernest at 1-514-670-1339.

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