A jeweler displays gold and silver bars in his shop in downtown Kuwait City, January 12, 2026.
Yasser Al-Zayyat | Afp | Getty Images
Gold and silver prices fell on Friday, after hitting record highs the day before, as investors booked profits after a record rise this year.
Spot gold prices fell more than 4% to $5,156.64 an ounce. The yellow metal has remained up around 20% since the start of the year.
“A correction back to $5,000 with some consolidation around that price would be a normal pattern in a bull market,” Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, told CNBC. “The surprise is that it went from $3,000 to $5,500 without any significant correction… So far, it’s more of a debacle than a traditional bull market for precious metals.”
Silver prices fell more than 5% to $110.26 an ounce. Since the start of the year, the price of the white metal is still 53% higher.
Meanwhile, markets in the Asia-Pacific region saw mixed developments after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would announce his choice for the next Federal Reserve chairman on Friday.
Speaking at the premiere of Melania, a film about first lady Melania Trump, he said the five-month search to replace the current chairman, Jerome Powell, was nearing an end..
The process of selecting Powell’s replacement began in September with a group of 11 candidates that included past and current Fed officials, economists and Wall Street investment professionals.
South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.23% while the small-cap Kosdaq added 0.99%. from Japan Nikkei 225 was up 0.25% and the Topix added 0.58%.
Australia S&P/ASX200 increased by 0.23%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped 0.71%, while the mainland’s CSI 300 fell 0.51%.
The chairman of the Indonesian stock exchange has resigned following the fallout from an MSCI warning about a possible downgrade. The Jakarta Composite index rose about 1% following the announcement.
Oil prices fell after Trump reportedly said he intended to speak with Iraneven as the United States sent another warship to the Middle East and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military was prepared to act on the president’s instructions. Trump provided no details on the scope or timeline of the negotiations, or who would lead them.
Brent, world reference lost 1.43% to 69.7 dollars per barrel, while the United States West Texas Intermediate Futures traded down 1.65% at $64.33 a barrel.
Futures contracts linked to S&P500 were down 0.16%, as were Nasdaq 100 Futures. Dow Jones Futures fell 112 points, or about 0.2%. Trump also approved a Senate an agreement to fund the vast majority of the federal government through the end of the fiscal year, easing short-term political uncertainty for investors.
Senators reached agreement in just over a day to partial agreement government shutdown. They agreed to remove funding for the Department of Homeland Security from the package and pass the other five bills, while DHS will be funded through a stopgap measure.
Overnight in the United States, the S&P500 fell, bogged down by Microsoftas traders reacted to the mega-cap tech company’s latest financial results and Federal Reserve results. interest rate decision.
The broad market index slipped 0.13% to close at 6,969.01, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.72% to end at 23,685.12. THE Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.11%, or 55.96 points, and stood at 49,071.56. In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin lost more than 5% and reached its lowest level in almost two months.
— CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.
