GOLD 00.00 1.20 0.00%
SILVER 00.00 1.20 0.00%

Metal Market Report July 2025 - Week 1 Edition

July 2025 - Week 1 Edition

Mid-Year Review of Metals and Other Markets

Stock investors have celebrated the fact that two major market indexes ended the first half of 2025 at record highs, but they didn’t report all the details behind that rise. True, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ composite each hit all-time highs but many other indicators with wide breadth did not make highs and most of the stocks within the S&P 500 and NASDAQ are suffering.

Here are five examples – three indices that rose slightly in 2025 and two others that fell:

First, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ are dominated by the “Magnificent 7” tech stocks that account for 34% of the S&P 500 weighting (performance) and 43% of the NASDAQ 100 weighting. Reviewing the other 493 S&P 500 stocks shows over half of them are down: 50% are below their 200-day moving averages. Unless you own an S&P 500 index fund, chances are good that your stocks are underwater.

It gets worse: In a broader survey of all 6,000 stocks trading on all U.S. exchanges, only 794 (13%) are currently in a clear and sustained uptrend, according to “followthemoney.com.” This is based on technical analysis indicators such as price momentum and volume. This means 5,200-plus stocks are either flat or down.

Another red flag is that the “Dow Theory” requires both the Dow Industrials and the Dow Transportation Index (DJT) to rise together to establish a bull market, based on the theory that goods must not only be produced but they must make their way to market. Currently, this divergence is mostly caused by a few “hot” tech and AI stocks lifting the indexes, while the real economy, goods movement, is slowing down.

Enough about stocks and our caution over Wall Street’s euphoria. Precious metals continue to eclipse stock gains (even though stock indexes are warped) by a ratio of at least five-to-one so far in 2025.

Platinum’s 52% gain in the first half, from $894 to $1,359 per ounce, is the biggest (pleasant) surprise. Among the other commodities, food is now more affordable, including a healthy breakfast of orange juice (-57%), eggs (-56%) and potatoes (-47%), all down significantly for the first half of the year.

The energy sector is also down, causing some relief at the gas pump, despite a brief (12-day) Iranian conflict that saw a short spike in crude oil prices. After the ceasefire on June 23rd, crude oil prices dropped $14 (-18%) in a day, from $78 to $64 per barrel. For the first half of 2025, crude oil prices are down 9.3%, natural gas is down 9.1% and coal is down 14.6%, partly as a result of President Trump’s resumption of exploration (“Drill, baby, drill”) of traditional fossil fuels to replace ex-President Joe Biden’s EV mandates.

In the second half of 2025, we could see further overseas wars erupting, plus partisan bickering over the tax relief and spending cuts at home and ongoing tariff negotiations – any one of which could send stocks down and gold up, delivering similarly strong gains for gold in the second half of 2025.

Speaking of the second half, if you go back one full year rather than six months, gold is the strongest of the metals markets. Gold may trail platinum and tie with silver in 2025 but not over the past 12 months:

Gold is still the king of the metals!

July began with a bang for precious metals. After a stellar first half, the metals continued their bullish run on the first trading day of the second half of 2025. Gold is up $44 per ounce in the futures market (+1.3%) and silver is up $0.60 (+1.6%). Part of the reason is the sinking dollar, as the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) hit a 3.5-year low of 96.38 overnight, down 12.4% from its peak reading of 110 on January 13.

 

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