After a strong start, the price of gold slipped twice to around $5,060 during this trading week. Now, it appears that gold prices might manage to stay just above $5,100 heading into the weekend, continuing the persistent sideways movement of the past five weeks.

Gold and silver prices are expected to begin the week on a strong note when trading resumes on Monday, as escalating tensions in the Middle East push investors toward safe-haven assets, analysts said.

The escalation of conflicts between Israel and Iran has strengthened the market's demand for safe-haven assets. Silver, as a precious metal with both safe-haven and industrial attributes, has become an alternative choice for capital to seek refuge amid the backdrop of gold's trend being suppressed by the rebound of the US dollar index on June 17. At the end of May, the gold-silver ratio once broke through the historical extreme of 1:100, far exceeding the previous long-term average of 60-80, indicating that silver was severely undervalued. The demand for silver's valuation repair has supported its price. The long-term trend of the global silver supply-demand gap provides underlying support for silver prices. As the most-traded SHFE silver contract technically broke through the round-number threshold of 9,000 yuan/kg, it attracted more market capital inflows, pushing silver prices to repeatedly hit new highs. As of around 15:19 on June 18, the most-traded SHFE silver contract rose by 2.35%, closing at 9,045 yuan/kg, and refreshing its historical high since listing to 9,075 yuan/kg...

Recently, Kinger Lau, Chief China Equity Strategist at Goldman Sachs, released a research report titled "The Return of China's Private Enterprises: The Tide Has Turned". Lau pointed out that driven by various macro, policy, and micro factors, the medium-term investment prospects for China's private enterprises are improving.

As trade tensions eased, US consumer confidence improved for the first time in six months, and pessimism over soaring underlying inflation also significantly abated. Data released by the University of Michigan on Friday showed that the preliminary consumer confidence index for June stood at 60.5, up 16% MoM and higher than the expected 54. This marked the first increase in consumer confidence since December last year. Joanne Hsu, director of the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers, said that consumers appeared to have recovered to some extent from the shock of the extremely high tariffs announced in April and the policy fluctuations that followed in subsequent weeks. However, consumers still believe that the economy faces broad downside risks. Nevertheless, consumer confidence remains about 20% lower than it was in December last year, and Americans could become nervous again if trade conflicts flare up anew. In addition, all five index components rose, with particularly large increases in short- and long-term expectations for business conditions, consistent with the perception that tariff pressures have eased somewhat. Their views on business conditions, personal finances, purchasing conditions for big-ticket items, the labour market, and the stock market are all significantly lower than they were in December 2024, six months ago. Despite the notable improvement in the economy this month, consumers remain cautious and worried about the economic trajectory. So far, the Trump administration has made little progress in trade negotiations, and with reciprocal tariffs set to be re-imposed on July 8, Trump has less than a month to consult with over a hundred trading partners. Notably, Trump's tariff plans have also encountered obstacles at home. Previously, the US Court of International Trade suspended almost all tariffs targeting specific countries on the grounds that Trump had overstepped his authority. However, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit later granted the Trump administration's request to temporarily stay the trade court's ruling that prohibited the enforcement of multiple tariff executive orders issued by the US government. The trade war initiated by Trump has influenced Americans' attitudes toward the economy, raising questions about what it means for consumer spending, the lifeblood of the US economy. Consumer sentiment has notably weakened, but in recent years, it has not been a reliable indicator for predicting future consumer spending. Data released simultaneously showed that the US one-year inflation rate expectation fell to 5.1% this month from 6.6% last month, and long-term inflation expectations declined for the second consecutive month, dropping to 4.1% from 4.2% in May. Both indices are at their lowest levels in three months. Hsu pointed out that consumers' concerns about the potential impact of tariffs on future inflation eased in June. Despite this, inflation expectations remain higher than the levels in the second half (H2) of 2024, reflecting widespread belief that trade policies may still lead to higher inflation in the coming year. Data released by the US Department of Labor this week showed that consumer prices rose 0.1% in May from the previous month, a smaller increase than market expectations, and concerns that tariffs implemented by Trump would start to drive up prices did not materialize. However, economists generally still expect tariffs to push up prices in the coming months. Mild inflation data has led Trump and other White House officials to once again call on the US Fed to cut interest rates. Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Great inflation numbers! The Fed should cut interest rates by a full percentage point."

On Thursday (June 12), US stocks opened lower but closed higher, with all three major indexes rising collectively. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 closed at their highest levels in at least three months. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.24% to 42,967.62 points, its highest level since March 6; the S&P 500 rose 0.38% to 6,045.26 points, a new high since February 21; and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.24% to 19,662.48 points. Among the 30 Dow components, 19 rose and 11 fell. The biggest decliner was Boeing (-4.79%). Earlier in the day, an Air India Boeing 787-8 aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff, marking the first fatal accident involving the Boeing 787 model. Driven by Oracle's positive earnings report after the market close the previous day, AI-related stocks generally rose. Oracle surged 13.31%, closing at an all-time high, with its total market capitalization reaching $560 billion, surpassing Mastercard and Netflix. Oracle's earnings report showed that the company's revenue and earnings across all segments exceeded analysts' expectations. To top it off, the company also raised its revenue forecast for the next fiscal year and provided an optimistic outlook for accelerated growth in cloud infrastructure. Oracle CEO Safra Catz stated on the earnings call that Oracle expects total revenue for fiscal 2026 to reach at least $67 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of approximately 16.7%, up from the previous forecast of 15% growth. As previously reported by Cailian Press, Trump had announced an AI infrastructure project named "Stargate," with SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle as the initial three companies involved in this $500 billion project. In addition to AI factors, the better-than-expected PPI report before the market open also boosted US stocks. Data showed that the US PPI rose 2.6% YoY in May, in line with expectations; core PPI rose 3%, below the market consensus of 3.1%. Analysts believe this indicates that tariffs have not yet imposed higher inflationary pressure on consumers, further boosting expectations for a US Fed interest rate cut in September. Similar to yesterday's CPI report, Trump once again pressured the US Fed to cut interest rates after the data release. Tom Hainlin, Senior Investment Strategist at U.S. Bank Asset Management Group, said that the future direction of US stocks depends on the resolution of tariff issues and how that resolution affects government budgets and US Fed policies. Hainlin stated, "We believe that the uncertainty surrounding the progress of trade negotiations remains the fundamental situation for the stock market. The market is currently experiencing sideways movement, and it is difficult to see a sustained breakthrough until we reach a conclusion." Performance of Popular Stocks Large-cap tech stocks had mixed changes. (Ranked by market capitalization) Microsoft rose by 1.32%, Nvidia rose by 1.52%; Apple rose by 0.21%, Amazon rose by 0.02%, Google C fell by 1.02%, Meta fell by 0.11%, Broadcom rose by 1.25%, and Tesla fell by 2.23%. US fintech company Chime saw its shares rise by 37.44% on its first day of trading. Among Chinese ADRs, the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index fell by 0.41%. Most popular Chinese ADRs declined. XPeng Motors fell by 5.87%, NIO fell by 3.21%, Li Auto fell by 1.8%, Alibaba fell by 1.45%, New Oriental fell by 0.96%, and JD.com fell by 0.36%. Zai Lab rose by 3.94%, Kingsoft Cloud rose by 3.74%, Tencent Music rose by 1.29%, Baidu rose by 0.3%, and Pinduoduo rose by 0.26%. Company News [Trump Signs Resolution to Block California's Plan to Ban Sales of New Gasoline-Powered Cars] US President Trump signed a resolution at the White House on the 12th to block California's plan to be the first state in the US to ban sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. [Apple Plans to Upgrade Long-Delayed AI Siri in Spring 2026] Apple plans to upgrade its long-delayed AI Siri in spring 2026. The company hopes to include new Siri features in the iOS 26.4 software. [Jensen Huang: Autonomous Driving and Robots Will Take Off in the Next Few Years] Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Thursday that autonomous vehicles and robotics technology will flourish in the next few years. Nvidia plays an important role in advancing the development of autonomous vehicles, providing both hardware and software solutions. Musk expressed a similar view to Huang's last month, stating that for Tesla, the most important things in the long run are autonomous driving and the humanoid robot "Optimus." [Lisa Su: AI Chip Market Size to Exceed $500 Billion by 2028] AMD CEO Lisa Su said that the AI chip market size will exceed $500 billion by 2028, and the inference chip market will grow even faster. Musk's AI startup xAI uses AMD's MI300 AI chips, and AMD has launched the MI350 and MI355 chips. The MI400 chip will be launched next year. [Coinbase: Will Launch Its First Credit Card, Coinbase One Card, on American Express's Network] Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced that it will launch its first credit card, the Coinbase One Card, on American Express's network. This card is exclusively for Coinbase One members in the US. Each purchase transaction will earn up to 4% cashback in Bitcoin. More information will be disclosed in the fall of 2025. [Adobe's Q2 revenue was $5.87 billion, exceeding expectations] Adobe's Q2 revenue was $5.87 billion, compared to analysts' expectations of $5.80 billion. The adjusted EPS for Q2 was $5.06, compared to analysts' expectations of $4.98. The company is expected to generate annual revenue of $23.5 billion to $23.6 billion, up from its original forecast of $23.3 billion to $23.55 billion. The company expects Q3 revenue to be $5.88 billion to $5.93 billion, compared to analysts' expectations of $5.88 billion. The company expects Q3 digital media revenue to be $4.37 billion to $4.40 billion, compared to analysts' expectations of $4.34 billion.