US stocks close up on Iran diplomacy hopes; tech leads rebound

US stocks closed up on Wednesday, after a news report that Iran had signaled openness to talks and a pledge by President Donald Trump to steady oil markets calmed investor anxiety about the Mideast clash.

Investors flocked again to tech shares, lifting the Nasdaq by 1.29% and keeping the tech‑heavy index in positive territory since the US-Israeli strike on Iran, which ignited the conflict in the Middle East. The S&P 500 remained close to its all-time closing high, in January, also helped by positive reports on the US economy.

A New York Times report said Iranian intelligence operatives indirectly reached out to the CIA a day after the attacks, but US officials remain skeptical that either the Trump administration or Iran is prepared for a near-term de-escalation. Trump’s announcements of a US naval escort for oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and political risk insurance also brought some relief.

The White House announcement reduced fears of major disruptions in the oil market, which could lift energy prices and pressure inflation, said Jim Awad, senior managing director at Clearstead Advisors LLC in New York. The relief gave investors confidence to scoop up tech-related stocks that sold off heavily in February and were cheap compared with weeks ago, he said.

“That combination is giving the market some optimism, which will be tested over the coming weeks,” Awad said. “It is time to be realistic and not get carried away, either too bullishly or too bearishly.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 238.14 points, or 0.49%, to 48,739.41, the S&P 500 gained 52.87 points, or 0.78%, to 6,869.50, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 290.79 points, or 1.29%, to 22,807.48.

The prospect of the war spurring additional inflation is one of the main reasons for market volatility on the horizon, said Richard Bernstein, chief executive officer of Richard Bernstein Advisors.

“If people think the war will be short-lived or ‘not an issue’ for the US economy, then the stock market will likely rally,” he said. “The opposite seems true, too. Long-lived and impacting the US economy could mean more volatility.”

The VIX — Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” which tracks expected stock‑market volatility — slipped to around 21, down roughly 10% on the day, signaling that traders were pricing in less near‑term turbulence despite the conflict.

Since the airstrikes over the weekend, the Nasdaq has risen 0.61%, and the small‑cap Russell 2000 is up 0.42%. The S&P 500 is down 0.14% and the Dow has fallen 0.49% this week.

The energy sector led declines on the S&P 500 on Wednesday as stocks that had climbed in recent days on rising oil-price fears reversed course. Exxon Mobil closed down 1.3%, and ConocoPhillips slipped 2.42%.

Several Middle Eastern countries have temporarily halted oil and gas production, and the US was looking to expand its campaign inside Iran.

Oil prices settled unchanged on Wednesday at the end of a volatile trading session. Brent crude settled at USD 81.40 per barrel, flat to Tuesday’s close and at its highest level since January 2025.

US economic activity rose a bit, prices continued to increase, and employment levels were stable in recent weeks, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in a report, which also showed economic expectations were optimistic.

Meanwhile, a private survey showed private payrolls increased more than expected in February, while a separate report pointed to strong services activity.

Drugmaker Moderna added 16% after agreeing to pay up to USD 2.25 billion to settle a long-running legal fight over a COVID-19 vaccine patent.

(Reporting by Sabrina Valle in New York; Additional reporting by Johann M Cherian, Ragini Mathur and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Matthew Lewis)

Gold rises as Middle East conflict escalates, dollar rally pauses

Gold prices rose on Wednesday as the escalating conflict in the Middle East attracted safe‑haven bids, while a pause in the US dollar’s rally also lent support.

Spot gold was up 0.7% at USD 5,120.71 per ounce by 1831 GMT, after falling more than 4% on Tuesday.

US gold futures for April delivery settled 0.2% higher at USD 5,134.70.

“The dollar has seen a pullback, which is providing some support. Overall, the macro-fundamental factors remain broadly supportive of gold. Certainly, as long as the war with Iran is ongoing, that’s going to remain supportive as well,” said Peter Grant, vice president and senior metals strategist at Zaner Metals.

“There is risk that volatility continues. But I remain bullish and think we will see new all-time highs.”

The dollar eased after sharp gains on Tuesday. A softer dollar makes greenback-priced gold less expensive for holders of other currencies.

The US–Iran war widened sharply after a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, killing at least 80 people, and NATO air defences destroyed an Iranian ballistic missile fired towards Turkey.

Gold, a non-yielding asset that is considered a hedge against uncertainty and inflation, tends to be preferred during periods of low interest rates.

The ADP’s national employment report showed US private payrolls increased more than expected in February, though data for the prior month was revised sharply lower.

Investors are turning their attention to the release on Friday of the US employment report for February. Nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 59,000 jobs last month after accelerating by 130,000 in January, a Reuters survey of economists predicted.

Spot silver firmed 1.3% to USD 83.07 per ounce after falling more than 8% in the previous session.

Spot platinum added 2.8% to USD 2,141.71 while palladium rose 1.2% to USD 1,667.51.

The World Platinum Investment Council said the global platinum market is heading for its fourth consecutive annual deficit in 2026.

(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru; Editing by Paul Simao and Krishna Chandra Eluri)

Investors brace for energy shock, inflation fears from prolonged Iran conflict

NEW YORK – Investors are starting to brace for a prolonged Middle East conflict that could stoke fresh inflation fears, threaten economic growth and undermine the case for interest-rate cuts in the coming months.

While whipsawed global markets found steadier ground on Wednesday, after the previous day’s sharp selling, inflation worries remain at the top of the worry list.

Disruption to the Strait of Hormuz – a chokepoint that carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply – has raised the risk of an energy-driven inflation surge.

“The reality is setting in that a prolonged conflict could dampen global growth and re‑ignite inflation pressures,” said Joseph Tanious, chief investment strategist at Northern Trust Asset Management in San Diego.

SOUTH KOREAN MARKET TUMBLES AMID OIL SPIKE

Oil prices jumped for a third straight day on Wednesday, although US stock futures ESc1 pointed to a positive open and European shares rallied.

Energy import-dependent countries such as South Korea have also been hit hard, with South Korea’s KOSPI benchmark closing down 12% on Wednesday, its largest drop on record.

The S&P 500 briefly hit its lowest level in more than three months on Tuesday and all 11 of the index’s sectors declined, indicating a broad selloff.

Global government bonds have weakened this week, with US 10-year Treasury yields 2.5 basis points higher on Wednesday at around 4.08%.

The Cboe Volatility Index, Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, also hit its highest level in more than three months.

“The reaction has become more intense… there’s no sign of a quick resolution,” said Que Nguyen, chief investment officer of equity strategies at Research Affiliates in Newport Beach, California. “People are waking up to the fact that this is a lot more complicated than they assumed.”

INFLATION BACK TO THE FORE

Investors zeroed in on the potential pressure on inflation stemming from a sustained rise in oil prices. Brent crude was last near USD 83 a barrel, up from around USD 60 at the start of the year.

The five-year US breakeven inflation – a market-based measure of inflation expectations – is trading at around 2.51%, the highest in almost a month.

Goldman Sachs economists estimate that a sustained 10% increase in oil prices boosts the consumer price index – a closely watched inflation measure – by 28 basis points.

No wonder Wall Street has tempered its expectations for US interest-rate cuts.

Fed Funds futures on Wednesday indicated a roughly 43% chance the Federal Reserve would cut rates by June, after markets had priced in a greater than 50% chance of a cut by that meeting as of late last month.

“The biggest issue that (investors) are trying to weigh gets back to the intertwining of inflation and interest rates,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services.

Gauges of European inflation have also nudged higher, and notably, markets have moved to start pricing in the chance of a European Central Bank rate hike by year-end.

“We’re multi-asset investors and the worst nightmare for a multi-asset investor is that your bonds and equities move in the same direction,” said Justin Onuekwusi, chief investment officer at St. James’s Place in London.

“When they move in the same direction, it’s when you have inflation fears and inflation expectations rise significantly.”

Other geopolitical volatility involving the United States, such as situations with Venezuela and Greenland, have failed to significantly undermine stocks. Some investors were already eyeing any weakness from the Iran conflict as a possible buying opportunity.

“We are taking cash we raised from tech to aggressively get more positioned for a global acceleration of economic growth,” said Eddie Ghabour, CEO of Key Advisors Wealth Management, whose firm has been buying emerging markets ETFs this week.

Despite the declines this week, the S&P 500 remained only slightly more than 2% from its all-time closing high.

Andrew Slimmon, senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said the market’s resiliency “suggests to me that investors might be underestimating the geopolitical risk”.

(Reporting by Laura Matthews and Lewis Krauskopf in New York; additional reporting by Suzanne McGee, Saeed Azhar, Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Stephen Culp and Dhara Ranasinghe; editing by Megan Davies and Alex Richardson)

Gold retreats on strong dollar, tempered rate-cut bets

Gold prices drifted lower on Tuesday, weighed by a stronger dollar and dimming prospects for rate cuts as inflation concerns intensified amid fears of a potentially prolonged Middle East conflict.

Spot gold was down 3.6% at USD 5,137.00 an ounce as of 1907 GMT. Prices hit an over four-week high in the previous session.

US gold futures settled 3.5% lower at USD 5,123.70.

“The move lower in gold appears to be driven by a flight to liquidity – a flight to cash. We have a strong dollar and bond yields trading higher,” said Bob Haberkorn, senior market strategist at RJO Futures.

The US dollar, a competing safe-haven asset, posted sharp gains, making dollar‑priced bullion less affordable for holders of other currencies, while US Treasury yields rose for a second consecutive session.

“However, this dip in prices is likely to be short‑lived, and flight to safety flows driven by geopolitical risk should support higher gold and silver prices,” Haberkorn added.

On the geopolitical front, the Iran conflict entered its fourth day as explosions rocked Tehran and Beirut, while a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards official said on Monday the Strait of Hormuz had been closed. Crude oil benchmarks jumped over 8% on Tuesday in response.

Damage to energy infrastructure and stalled tanker traffic through Hormuz have lifted the risk of sustained strength in oil, gas and refined products, stoking inflation fears and pushing back rate-cut expectations, leaving gold with little support, said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index and FOREX.com.

Despite being considered a hedge against inflation and turmoil, gold is typically preferred in low-rate environments, as it yields no interest.

Spot gold has gained 19% this year, supported by global turmoil, following a 64% surge in 2025. Meanwhile, silver was up over 16% this year.

Spot silver fell 6.6% to USD 83.50 an ounce after climbing to a more than four-week high on Monday.

Elsewhere, platinum lost 8.4% to USD 2,108.51 and palladium shed 5.6% to USD 1,667.41.

(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri, Diti Pujara, and Sahal Muhammed)

US yields rise for second straight session as oil rally continues

NEW YORK – US Treasury yields rose for a second straight session on Tuesday but eased from earlier highs, as the Iran war entered a fourth day and continued to push oil prices higher and fan inflation worries.

Israeli and US forces hit targets across Iran, leading to Iranian retaliatory strikes around the Gulf as the conflict spread to Lebanon and sparking concerns of an extended upheaval to global energy supplies.

A day after President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave open-ended answers when asked how long the war would last, a source told Reuters that Israel’s campaign had been planned to last two weeks and was moving faster than expected.

US crude rose 4.9% to USD 74.72 a barrel and Brent jumped to USD 81.44 per barrel, up 4.76% on the day, after hitting a 19-month high of USD 85.12. Crude had settled up more than 6% on Monday.

“If oil prices remain elevated for a prolonged period, the resulting inflationary pressures could prove detrimental to the global economy and may constrain the Federal Reserve from cutting rates, and in a more adverse scenario, could even open the door to rate hikes,” said Phil Blancato, chief market strategist at Osaic in New York.

“The conflict’s duration and the potential for further US involvement and resources remain uncertain. Fixed income yields could remain elevated in response to inflationary concerns, though a recessionary scenario appears unlikely at this stage.”

The yield on the benchmark US 10-year Treasury note edged up 0.4 basis point to 4.056% after climbing to a 2-1/2-week high of 4.117% on the day.

Rising inflation fears have dented expectations for a rate cut from the Federal Reserve. Markets were initially targeting the central bank’s June meeting as the first with more than a 50% chance for a cut of at least 25 basis points, but the probability has now dropped to 39.1%, according to CME’s FedWatch Tool.

The yield on the 30-year bond added 0.3 basis point at 4.702% after rising to 4.746%, its highest since February 20.

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said it is too soon to gauge the impact of the war with Iran on US inflation and growth, but the American economy is far less dependent on imported oil than it has been and has proved resilient to energy price shocks.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said the conflict has raised uncertainty about the US economic outlook and made the outlook for monetary policy less clear.

A closely watched part of the US Treasury yield curve measuring the gap between yields on two- and 10-year Treasury notes, seen as an indicator of economic expectations, was at a positive 55.4 basis points after earlier dropping to 50.3, its narrowest since November 28.

The two-year US Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Fed, advanced 1.3 basis points to 3.5% after advancing to 3.599%, its highest since late January.

Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Schmid signaled his continued opposition to further interest-rate cuts, saying the US labor market is in balance and inflation is too hot, although he also did not address the potential impact of the conflict in Iran.

The breakeven rate on five-year US Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) was last at 2.515% after closing at 2.499% on Monday, its highest since February 11.

The 10-year TIPS breakeven rate was last at 2.281%, indicating the market sees inflation averaging about 2.3% a year for the next decade.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak, additional reporting by Laura Matthews; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Nia Williams)

Investors brace for energy shock, inflation fears from prolonged Iran conflict

NEW YORK – Investors are starting to brace for a more prolonged Middle East conflict that could stoke fresh inflation fears, threaten economic growth, and undermine the case for interest-rate cuts in coming months.

Markets on Tuesday endured a second day of whiplash asset price moves following the start of strikes by the US and Israeli on Iran over the weekend. A disruption to the Strait of Hormuz – a critical chokepoint that carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply — raised the risk of an energy-driven inflation surge.

“While not much has changed fundamentally since yesterday, investors are growing anxious about the duration of the war and its impact on energy prices,” said Joseph Tanious, chief investment strategist at Northern Trust Asset Management in San Diego. “The reality is setting in that a prolonged conflict could dampen global growth and re‑ignite inflation pressures.”

As oil prices jumped for a second day, Wall Street’s main indexes slumped, with the benchmark S&P 500 falling 0.9%. Although stocks pared deeper losses from earlier in the session, the S&P 500 hit its lowest level in over three months, and all 11 of the index’s sectors declined, indicating a broad selloff.

Global government bonds weakened, but they came off their lows as traders evaluated how long the conflict is likely to last.

The Cboe Volatility Index, Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” also hit its highest level in more than three months.

“The reaction has become more intense…there’s no sign of a quick resolution,” said Que Nguyen, chief investment officer of equity strategies at Research Affiliates in Newport Beach, California. “People are waking up to the fact that this is a lot more complicated than they assumed.”

Investors zeroed in on the potential pressure on inflation stemming from a sustained rise in oil prices. Brent crude was last around USD 81 a barrel, up from around USD 60 at the start of the year.

The five-year US breakeven inflation — a market-based measure of inflation expectations — rose to 2.503% late on Monday, the highest since February 11.

Goldman Sachs economists estimate that a sustained 10% increase in oil prices boosts the consumer price index — a closely watched inflation measure — by 28 basis points.

Meanwhile, Wall Street appears to be tempering its expectations for interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.

Fed Fund futures on Tuesday indicated a 56% chance the central bank will remain on hold at its June meeting, after markets had priced in a greater than 50% chance of a cut by that meeting as of late last month, according to CME FedWatch.

“The biggest issue that (investors) are trying to weigh gets back to the intertwining of inflation and interest rates,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services.

Other geopolitical volatility involving the United States, such as situations with Venezuela and Greenland, has failed to significantly undermine stocks. Some investors were already eyeing any weakness from the Iran conflict as a possible buying opportunity.

Despite the declines this week, the S&P 500 remained only slightly over 2% from its all-time closing high.

Andrew Slimmon, senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said the market’s resiliency “suggests to me that investors might be underestimating the geopolitical risk.”

Investors will be watching carefully for developments in the days ahead.

“We’re really still at the mercy of the headlines,” said Kevin Gordon, head of macro research and strategy at Charles Schwab. “The potential for whiplash in parts of the market is very high.”

(Reporting by Laura Matthews and Lewis Krauskopf in New York; additional reporting by Suzanne McGee, Saeed Azhar, Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, and Stephen Culp; editing by Megan Davies)

Oil jumps as US-Iran conflict escalates, disrupts shipping

SINGAPORE — Oil prices surged more than 8% to their highest in months on Monday as Iran and Israel stepped up attacks in the Middle East, damaging tankers and disrupting shipments from the key producing region.

Brent crude futures struck a high of USD 82.37 a barrel and was at USD 79.34, up USD 6.47, or 8.88%, by 2305 GMT.

US West Texas Intermediate crude jumped USD 5.36, or 8%, to USD 72.38 a barrel after touching a high of USD 75.33 earlier.

Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Tehran on Sunday and Iran responded with more missile barrages, a day after the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei pitched the Middle East and the global economy into deepening uncertainty.

At least three tankers were damaged off the Gulf coast and one seafarer was killed as Iranian retaliation for US and Israeli strikes on Iran exposed ships to collateral damage, shipping sources and officials said on Sunday.

(Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Sonali Paul)

US yields edge higher as traders await clarity on tariff policy in Trump speech

NEW YORK – US Treasury yields held in a narrow range on Tuesday, edging modestly higher, as investors continued to weigh the Supreme Court’s decision blocking President Donald Trump’s tariffs imposed using emergency powers, while they looked to his upcoming speech for signals on trade policy.

Trump will deliver the traditional State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night, offering him a chance to persuade voters to keep Republicans in control of the US House of Representatives and Senate in the midterm elections in November. The president is also expected to address the Supreme Court’s decision last week on tariffs, arguing that the court erred and outlining alternative laws he can use to reinstate most of the import levies that were struck down.

“He’s going to talk about tariffs, and he’s certainly going to express disappointment in the (Supreme Court) decision,” said Gregory Faranello, head of US rates strategy at AmeriVet Securities in New York. “But with tariffs, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, so they’ve got different vehicles that they can use, and they’re doing that. We hashed out the extremes of this last year, and this will continue to evolve and play ou,t but we see the extremes behind us.”

In afternoon trading, the benchmark 10-year yield was up a basis point (bp) at 4.037%. On Monday, it hit its lowest level since late November.

US 30-year yields were flat on the day at 4.696%.

On the front end of the curve, the two-year yield, which reflects interest rate expectations, was up 2.1 bps at 3.461%.

The Treasury on Tuesday auctioned USD 69 billion in US two-year notes, and the results were lackluster. The auction priced at 3.455%, slightly higher than the expected yield at the bid deadline, suggesting investors demanded a modestly higher premium to take down the note.

The bid-to-cover ratio, another measure of demand, was 2.63X, marginally lower than the three-auction average of 2.66X.

The last two-year note auction in January went smoothly, with end-user demand, which combines both indirect and direct bids, hitting the highest level since February 2025.

J.P. Morgan, in a research note, had pointed out earlier prior to the auction, that the two-year note sale could be hard to digest, “given lower outright yields and a less supportive macro backdrop.”

FLATTER US YIELD CURVE

In other pockets of the bond market, the yield curve flattened for a 10th straight session on Tuesday, with the spread between two-year and 10-year yields declining to 57.2 bps, compared with 58.9 bps late on Monday.

The curve showed a bear flattening scenario, in which shorter-dated rates are rising faster than longer-term maturities. This situation likely reflects expectations that the Federal Reserve could continue the pause of its rate-cutting cycle as it looks to tamp down rising inflation.

US fed funds futures on Tuesday priced in about 56 bps of easing this year, or about two rate cuts of 25 bps each. That expectation has been in place since the beginning of 2026. The first rate cut is not expected until July or September.

US economic data, meanwhile, were mixed, with gains in single-family home prices slowing in December. House prices edged up 0.1% after an upwardly revised 0.7% increase in November, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said on Tuesday. House prices were previously reported to have advanced 0.6% in November.

Consumer confidence, on the other hand, rebounded more than expected in February amid an improvement in households’ perceptions of the labor market.

The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index rose to 91.2 this month. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index would be at 87.0. Data for January was also revised higher to show the index at 89.0 instead of 84.5, which was the lowest level since May 2014.

Treasuries, however, showed little reaction to the US numbers.

(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Paul Simao and Will Dunham)

Stocks up, rebounding as Anthropic unveils uses for AI plugins

NEW YORK – Global shares rose on Tuesday after San Francisco-based startup Anthropic unveiled 10 new ways for business customers to use its AI plugins, which revived enthusiasm that AI would boost profits for businesses, including in investment banking, human resources, and engineering.

In the previous session, stock prices fell as investors worried that heavy capital spending on AI may not translate into profits soon, and were also nervous about President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

Anthropic’s release boosted stocks just weeks after other releases sparked a selloff in the software and services sectors.

The US Customs and Border Protection imposed a new tariff of 10% on all goods not covered by exemptions. Last Friday, the US Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s emergency tariffs were unlawful. Investors had feared Trump might follow through on a threat to impose 15% tariffs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.76%, the S&P 500 gained 0.76%, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 1%.

Uncertainty from tariffs is starting to take a back seat, and the market is trying to understand the implications of AI for company earnings, said Ken Mahoney, president and chief executive at Mahoney Asset Management in New Jersey.

“We’ve already established that we’re going to lose jobs with AI, and AI may in fact do things better and more efficiently than some of the older software programs out there, but then you start calculating that if these companies are going to let a lot of people go because of AI that means fewer licenses from the likes of Microsoft,” Mahoney said.

“We went through all these areas and all that negativity, and it’s nice to see it bouncing back to about half of where we were yesterday (Monday),” Mahoney said.

European stocks rose 0.23%. Britain’s FTSE finished a shade lower by 0.04%.

MSCI’s All-World index was up 0.52% after dropping 0.62%.

Shares of International Business Machines closed up 2.7%. On Monday, IBM shares plunged more than 13%, their biggest daily fall since late 2000. Anthropic said its Claude Code tool could be used to modernize a programming language run on the company’s systems.

The sheer scale of corporate borrowing and spending on AI has made many investors nervous due largely to the outsized market weight of companies at the heart of the boom. AI chipmaker Nvidia, which reports earnings after the bell on Wednesday, accounts for around 8% of the entire S&P 500. NVIDIA rose 0.7%.

“The biggest concern is margins. And margins, seemingly with new and cheaper technology, is something that’s really bothersome to markets,” Mahoney said.

The yield on benchmark US 10-year notes rose 0.6 basis points to 4.033%. The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose 2.5 basis points to 3.444%.

In currencies, the yen weakened following a report that said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi had conveyed her reservations about further interest rate hikes to Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda. The Japanese yen weakened 0.79% against the greenback to 155.89 per dollar.

The dollar weakened 0.1% against the Swiss franc at 0.774. The euro EUR= was down 0.1% at USD 1.1772 against the dollar.

Sterling was flat at USD 1.3488.

Brent crude settled down 1% at USD 70.77 per barrel, while tensions continued to simmer between the US and Iran. Safe-haven gold dropped 0.1% at USD 5,142 an ounce.

(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; Additional reporting by Gregor Stuart Hunter in Singapore; Editing by Nick Zieminski, Will Dunham, and David Gregorio)

Gold slips from three‑week high on dollar strength, profit-taking

Gold retreated on Tuesday, easing from a three‑week high as profit‑taking and a firmer dollar pressured prices, while traders awaited clarity on US tariff plans and the outcome of talks between Washington and Tehran.

Spot gold fell 1.4% to USD 5,158.24 per ounce by 01:40 p.m. ET (1840 GMT). US gold futures for April delivery settled 0.9% lower at USD 5,176.30.

The US dollar rose 0.1%, making greenback-priced bullion more expensive for holders of other currencies.

“Gold prices (had been) trending higher again, so I suspect this is just a corrective pullback,” said Jim Wyckoff, senior analyst at Kitco Metals, adding that a higher dollar is also having a negative influence on the prices.

Prices hit a three-week high earlier in the session, after US President Donald Trump vowed to raise duties to 15% following the Supreme Court ruling that his use of an emergency law to impose tariffs exceeded his authority.

However, the US on Tuesday imposed a 10% tariff on all non‑exempt goods, as first announced by Trump on Friday.

Meanwhile, Iran and the US will hold a third round of nuclear talks on Thursday in Geneva, amid growing concerns about the risk of military conflict between the longtime adversaries.

“You’ve still got solid safe‑haven demand, with Iran-US tensions and tariff uncertainty limiting selling in gold, keeping fundamentals supportive. But as prices near record highs, they’ll face stiff resistance, and pushing to new highs would likely require a fresh geopolitical catalyst,” Wyckoff said.

Gold, a traditional safe-haven asset, tends to benefit in times of geopolitical and economic uncertainty.

Separately, outgoing Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic told Reuters the US may be entering a phase of structurally higher unemployment as firms adopt AI to cut labor, a shift that the Fed may not be able to counter with lower rates.

Spot silver edged down 1.2% to USD 87.21 per ounce, after hitting a more than two-week high on Monday.

Spot platinum was up 1% at USD 2,175.95 per ounce, while palladium rose 2.3% to USD 1,785.35.

(Reporting by Anmol Choubey in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Diti Pujara)

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