A Fed conference, a political tug of war over interest rates, and a price surge across the board that ended the month up. There’s a lot to unpack, especially since what happened in August is already playing out in the September markets. All four metals climbed, and gold posted its best month since January.
“Gold is the new gold,” Pippa Malmgren, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, told CNBC. What has drawn investors in, she said, is the fear that U.S. fiscal spending is out of control.
| Metal | Open | Close | Change |
| Gold | $4,055.30 | $4,447.75 | +9.7% |
| Silver | $58.19 | $66.55 | +14.4% |
| Platinum | $1,632.00 | $1,796.05 | +10.1% |
| Palladium | $1,267.55 | $1,361.85 | +7.4% |
Gold
Gold opened August at $4,055.30 and closed at $4,447.75, a 9.7% gain, with a monthly high of $4,658.44 on August 25. It was gold’s strongest month since January and clawed back a large piece of the spring and summer selloff, though the price still sits well below January’s record.
Two things turned the tide. A tamer July inflation report and a soft jobs print pulled the odds of a September Fed hike down by roughly 20 points in a single week, and the Treasury’s move to hold down long-term borrowing costs revived the debasement trade.Â
Underneath both, central banks kept buying. Goldman Sachs Research, which put out a gold outlook worth reading, lifted its year-end target to $4,900 an ounce and expects central banks to average 50 tonnes a month in 2026, up from 17 before 2022. China’s central bank was the largest buyer in June, and the PBOC added nearly 20 tons in July, its 21st straight month of accumulation. Analysts Lina Thomas and Daan Struyven “continue to see elevated central bank gold accumulation as a multi-year trend.”
Silver
Silver opened August at $58.19 and closed at $66.55, a 14.4% gain, with a monthly high of $69.25. Silver’s high beta to gold cuts both ways, and on the way up in August it outran the larger metal.
There are two ways to read silver right now. On one hand, the August rally showed how hard the metal moves when gold climbs and sentiment turns. On the other, the banks have grown cautious about the months ahead. J.P. Morgan cut its fourth-quarter silver forecast to $63 an ounce, down from the $90 it had penciled in back in May, and trimmed its full-year average to $70. Analyst Gregory Shearer pointed to softening industrial demand: Chinese solar buying that was pulled forward ahead of a tax change, Indian import duties biting, and thrifting technologies cutting how much silver each panel needs. “On days when gold slips, silver has a much more outsized tumble,” Shearer said, a reversal of last year.
Platinum and Palladium
Platinum opened August at $1,632.00 and closed at $1,796.05, a 10.1% gain, with a monthly high of $1,882.00 on August 21. Palladium opened at $1,267.55 and closed at $1,361.85, a 7.4% gain, with a monthly high of $1,425.40 on August 28.
Platinum has traded almost in lockstep with gold since 2025, a correlation the World Platinum Investment Council puts at 0.95, which means the macro turn that lifted gold pulled platinum along with it. The council notes that fading September rate-hike expectations, which dropped from 64% to 32% over the first three weeks of August, did most of the work. Palladium’s late-month jump had a supply story of its own: renewed concern about Russian output from Nornickel, which accounts for roughly 40% of mined global supply, alongside tighter emissions rules in the EU and China.
Looking Ahead
September is already testing August’s gains. Gold has slipped back toward a level traders were watching near $4,370 after new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used his Jackson Hole debut to say the Fed still has “work to do” on inflation, pushing September hike odds back toward 70%. That’s the same tug of war that ran all month: a Fed signaling higher-for-longer against a labor market that keeps softening. The structural case behind the metals, central bank buying, currency debasement, and tight supply hasn’t changed.
If you’re tracking daily spot prices, August showed how fast the metals rebound when the rate picture shifts. The case for buying gold and silver didn’t change on the way down this spring, and it won’t change on next month’s Fed odds either. Our commission-free brokers can help you match a position to your situation.
Spot price data is sourced from CMI Gold & Silver’s daily spot prices.
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