Gold & Precious Metals Corner

Tuesday, 2026-09-29 · covering the last 24h

Market signal

Gold and silver claw back a slice of Monday's rout as traders look past the Hormuz shock to a data-heavy week. Spot gold traded near $4,158–4,163 in early U.S. dealing Tuesday, up roughly 1% on the session after Monday's near-4% plunge to a seven-week low; spot silver held around $60.70–61, a modest bounce that still leaves it below Monday's close. The rebound is thin cover: the 10-year Treasury yield remains close to 5.25% — its highest since 2007 — the dollar index sits near a two-month high, and Fed October-hike odds hold around 70%, the same mix that drove Monday's slide. Attention now turns to August JOLTS job openings (Tuesday), PCE inflation (Wednesday) and non-farm payrolls (Friday) for the next steer on Fed pricing. Kitco AM Report · USAGOLD Daily Report

Upstream — miners, streamers & supply

Sibanye-Stillwater's Montana PGM dispute splits in two: East Boulder ratifies, Nye/Columbus stays out. Roughly 320 USW members at the East Boulder mine voted 27–28 September to approve a new four-year contract, including no base-wage increase in its first two years, resolving the outcome left open in Monday's edition. The separate unfair-labor-practice strike at Stillwater East (Nye) and the Columbus metallurgical complex, where members rejected an earlier offer by a 93% margin, remains unresolved with no talks reported. Billings Gazette

A second, separate Mali strike thread stays live even after Barrick's unions stood down. Away from the Loulo-Gounkoto settlement reached Sunday, staff at Mali's National Directorate of Geology and Mines and related administrative bodies filed their own notice for a 72-hour stoppage running 29 September–1 October over unpaid wages, allowances and bonuses — a regulatory-side dispute distinct from Barrick's own workforce, but a reminder that labour friction in Mali's mining bureaucracy hasn't fully cleared. Mining.com (Reuters)

Physical & official flows — central banks, ETFs & bullion

Nothing new on the official-sector or ETF side of the window: the WGC's next central-bank purchase update and the next weekly GLD/SLV flow print aren't due until early-to-mid October, and COMEX/LBMA inventory levels showed no fresh dislocation beyond the widened EFP spread already flagged this month.

Silver & PGMs — the industrial complex

No new industrial-demand, recycling or hedging data broke in the window; platinum, palladium and silver are trading off the same macro tape as gold (see Market signal), not a fresh fundamentals story.

The Chatter

Vince Lanci — GoldFix (Substack, via ZeroHedge syndication): Lanci argues gold's break below its 50- and 100-day moving averages this week is being driven by Shanghai speculators cutting long futures positions ahead of the Shanghai Futures Exchange's Thursday close for China's National Day "Golden Week," and warns the unwind could extend into the holiday shutdown before it's done. Post