Gold and Silver continue their extremely strong rises to new record high prices, with Silver hitting the $120 milestone.
- Precious metals remain very much in focus as Gold and Silver both make huge price rises in the space of just a few days, of more than 10%. Many analysts see these continuing bullish movements as caused by a perfect storm of fear of erratic US leadership/policies, trend FOMO, weak monetary policies, and geopolitical tensions over Iran. Whatever the reason, being long of precious metals, especially Gold and Silver, has been the most profitable trade available in recent months, and trend traders will be happily long. Both precious metals have been showing bullish consolidation price action since the Fed's press conference yesterday. We are seeing Platinum and Palladium refuse to make new highs, so the rally is focused purely on Gold and Silver now.
- Despite geopolitical tensions over war and trade, stock markets are mostly trading higher, with the S&P 500 Index making a record high daily close yesterday, but a notably weak one a few points below the big psychological round number at 7,000. A daily close above this psychological level today could signify that the Index is ready to go on to make substantial gains after trading mostly sideways so far in 2026. Other notably strong market indices include the South Korean KOSPI, which is closing at a new all-time high, and the Chinese HSI, which is trading at a multi-year high. The Japanese Nikkei 225 Index is also up today. Trend traders will want to be long of the S&P 500 Index. The NASDAQ 100 Indexmade a record high close yesterday, its first since October 2025, which will trigger some trend traders to make long trades, but it is notable that the price action looks hesitant and that a new record high price has not yet been made.
- Yesterday saw policy meetings held by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada. There were no surprises at all, with both leaving their respective interest rates on hold as was widely expected. As often happens, despite the lack of surprise, markets became active after the Fed meeting, and ongoing trends continued.
- The US military buildup towards Iran continues, with prediction markets seeing a US military attack on Iran as likely to happen in March. Polymarket betting suggests that the crowd is expecting a military clash in late February or early March. This could be holding back the US stock market, but it is helping to send the price of Crude Oil higher, as a full-scale war could seriously impact the supply of crude oil to the global market. Currently, WTI Crude Oil is looking bullish and approaching a new 4-month high price.
- In the Forex market, since today's Tokyo open, the Australian Dollar has been the strongest major currency, while the Japanese Yen has been the weakest. We recently saw strong breakouts in the EUR/USD and the GBP/USD and the USD/CHF currency pairs. The last two days have seen consolidations, but further breakouts against the US Dollar look likely, as the greenback weakened after yesterday's Fed meeting. The US Dollar Index is trading near the 3.5 year low price it made a few days ago, and a breakdown remains probable.
- Despite rises in stock markets and precious metals, Bitcoin is still languishing near its 1-month lows, which is a very bearish sign that something bad is going on with Bitcoin in particular and crypto in general. If the price breaks the key support level at $86,657, it could be prone to a sharp fall towards $81,203. If that level breaks down, it could go much lower still.
- There will be a release of US Unemployment Claims data today.