Swissquote

Monday ended up being a better session for US and European markets than for Asian ones.

Those who hoped that Friday's sharp drop in gold and silver prices — which shed 9% off gold and 27% off silver — would slow this Monday woke up to another nightmare this morning.

We're coming toward the end of a geopolitically calm-ish week — no major threats, no major events — but with rising volatility in the metals markets.

The US Federal Reserve (Fed) mostly did what was expected when it announced its policy update yesterday: it kept rates unchanged.

There were plenty of major stories and market moves yesterday, but the most significant — and most impactful — was undoubtedly the sharp sell-off in the US dollar.

Last week was marked by the escalation — and partial de-escalation — of geopolitical and trade tensions between the US and the EU, Macron's now-famous glasses that grabbed headlines at the World Economic Forum, and renewed stress around Japan's swelling public debt.

It took the US president a single minute to flip sentiment from fear to greed.

The week started on a sour note in Europe. With the US markets closed, European equities spent the session trying to gauge the Greenland risks: how serious is this, how far could it go, and where could it end?

Yesterday was refreshing in the sense that we briefly went back to the optimistic, euphoric mood of the past three years, with AI dominating headlines for the right reasons — strong numbers from TSMC and a very strong market reaction.