In this Daily Editorial, Craig Hemke, Founder and Publisher of the TF Metals Report, joins me to discuss the moderating of the peak hawkishness in the markets around inflation and Fed policy expectations over the last couple weeks. Softening expectations have provided the conditions for the precious metals to begin to bottom and build a base, while lifting sector sentiment. We dive into the technical outlook for gold, silver, and PM equity prices, counterbalanced against the macroeconomic backdrop.
Key Discussion points:
Craig comments on pricing in gold, silver, and PM ETFs holding steady over the last week and not going down any further; and making a slight move higher.
There was legitimate chart damage done as pricing broke below the 200-day moving average, and 50-week moving averages as a ‘piling on’ effect from the peak hawkishness in the markets.
However, if things calm down in these summer months and pricing consolidates through time, then those moving averages will coalesce and smooth out.
This could rhyme with last summer’s sideways consolidation period, where the moving averages narrowed and built the energy for the short-duration price averages to break above the longer-duration price average to kick off the next leg higher in the bull market.
He believes most of the corrective move has now happened at this point; noting that every time gold moved below $4,000 that we witnessed strong buying come in to snap it back up over that level.
Craig reiterated that even if 2026 was to end the year flat and somewhere around the $4,340 level where it opened this year, that this would be solid performance after the outsized gains in gold on a percentage basis from 2024 and 2025.
Gold producers were chopped in half, on extreme negative sentiment from the falling metals prices paired with rising energy prices ever since the war broke out in March.
Later in July and into August we’ll start getting the actual Q2 earnings reports from the PM producers, and Craig feels that they may surprise many investors to the upside.
The average price of the metals and margins actually were higher than many quarters from last year, and definitely a stark difference compared to Q2 of 2025, for the year-over-year comparisons.
Additionally, the actual effect of the higher oil prices on producers input costs versus the perceptions will be another key data point to follow. The fear around higher energy prices was the rationale many used to drop the valuation in producers by 40%-60%, even though the energy inputs only come in around 10%-15% of costs, and so the concerns were way overblown by skittish investors throughout Q2.
As we receive Q3 guidance, it will come at time where oil prices are essentially right back down to where they were at before the war even began, which should bake those concerns back out of the cost estimates.
The Fed funds futures have swung to both extremes, coming into the year expecting 2 rate cuts, and flip-flopping by going to peak hawkishness and pricing in 2 rate hikes just a few weeks back, after Kevin Warsh’s first press conference post FOMC meeting.
Craig expects that as we get more data and those inflation expectations start to equilibrate, that the market will shift to more neutral Fed policy guidance moving into the Fall, which will be a boon for the precious metals sector.
All eyes will be on the CPI and PPI numbers 2 weeks from now for more clarity on the trend in inflation.
Click here to visit Craig’s website – TF Metals Report – https://www.tfmetalsreport.com/
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