Gold and Silver Gain after Oil Prices Ease

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]Gold gained $104 this week while silver surged $56.

[00:00:06]Meanwhile, the straight of Hormuz remains closed, increasing the largest oil supply shock in history, the full effects of which have yet to be fully felt in market supply shortages and market pricing. Meanwhile, the shaky ceasefire between the US and Iran continues as Iran has yet to respond to the latest US peace proposal. So, the world is waiting to see whether there truly will be peace or whether there will be renewed military activity. In the next 15 minutes, I'll cover how all of this has affected oil yields and precious metals in the last week's trading, including the latest support and [music] resistance levels for precious metals in this gold market commentary recorded at the close of markets on Friday, May 8th, 2026.

[00:01:11]Hi, I'm Dana Samuelson, president of American Gold Exchange in Austin, Texas.

[00:01:16]We are a national physical precious metals and vintage US gold coin dealership. If we can help you with any of your needs in the physical precious metals arena, we'd love to have that opportunity. So, let's get on with our update. Since the straight of Hormuz continues to remain closed, the oil supply shock continues to worsen and we're at that point now where the lag effect is really going to start to kick in due to the closure. This is a an article from Reuters. Oil inventories and emergency re reserves are rapidly depleting, raising the risk of supply shortages, and I think we're on the cusp of that now. Uh executives warned that the full impact of the straight of Hormuz closure has not yet been felt. Uh citing lag effects, but I think we're almost there. And of course, analysts expect higher prices and volatility, especially as we get into the summer demand season, which we're heading into now. And what happened this week? Well, President Trump tried to reopen the straight of Hormuz with Operation Freedom, which led to oil prices coming off a bit, but that plan uh hit a real abrupt stop just a day after it was introduced, only to be reintroduced after a two-day lag. So, what happened? Well, Iran attacked the UAE once President Trump announced Operation Freedom and we tried to begin to open the straight of Hormuz.

[00:03:00]Why is Iran picking on the UAE? Because the UAE has ties to Israel. The UAE is the one of the only Persian Gulf nations that signed the Abraham Accords with Israel in September of 2020, normalizing relationships between the two countries.

[00:03:21]And Saudi Arabia was set to sign the same Abraham Accords in the fall of 2023.

[00:03:28]But that's when Hamas, the Iranian proxy, attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023, which blew up the Saudi Arabian chances of signing the Abraham Accords.

[00:03:43]problems that Iran has created in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East have rippled for years all due to their hatred of Israel. And now it's possible that Saudi Arabia will never sign the uh Abraham Accords because of objections from the uh the populace in Saudi Arabia. What has happened due to this conflict and Iran lashing out at the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait has isolated Iran in the Persian Gulf, making them a pariah among their neighbors. But what happened this week was after the UAE was attacked, President Trump stated that it wasn't a violation of the ceasefire and it wasn't that big of a deal, which caused MBS to have a problem and Kuwait to have a problem as well because they felt that that was a signal that the US might not fully defend them in the future. And the US has been using Saudi Arabia and uh Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti uh territory to help stage some of our military activities. And what did they do? They refused the US that accessibility, which is why Operation Freedom was halted for two days. And after reassurances to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, uh Operation Freedom was renewed again.

[00:05:14]So finally on Thursday, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait lifted the curbs on the US military access to bases and airspace which have allowed Operation Freedom to continue. But the Strait of Hormuz is still fundamentally closed. Meanwhile, we're starting to see issues with jet fuel in particular. It's a higher distillate. The supply interruptions are now really being felt uh in places uh like Malaysia and Thailand that get jet fuel from China and China is refusing to export it right now.

[00:05:53]So the US has some insulation from this because we can refined jet fuel in the US but most of the pipelines that carry jet fuel uh are in the middle part of the country or the eastern part of the country. they don't go through the mountain passes to the western part of the country. So the west western US has to get most of its jet fuel from where South Korea where the refineries are. And uh jet fuel is most ironically accessible to the western coast of the US. But where does South Korea get their oil from? The Persian Gulf. And this is how interconnected all of this is. Uh, so you can fill up a jet and fly it out of somewhere, but [laughter] you may not be able to get a lot of fuel where you land it. And what are you going to do then?

[00:06:43]That's part of the ripple effect that's just now really coming. So, let's get on to the meaty part of our update and look at the oil prices. This is a Brent crude one-year chart. It shows we've seen oil move firmly over where it was at 7250.

[00:07:00]It's been trading primarily between $90 and 115 per barrel for Brent crude. Uh dated Brent live Brent oil on the sea is trading at a substantial premium to the contract price for the futures exchange for Brent crude. But this is nonetheless the Brent crude price which is holding right at about $101 uh3 as we close the market today. So oil has come off this week uh for Brent crude and also for West Texas Intermediary crude which has been trading primarily between about $84 and $110 per barrel uh over the last two months. Today WTIC closed just under $95 a barrel down on the week about $7.30 as was Brent crude. So seeing oil come down this week uh due to the continued ceasefire shaky as it is uh has also reduced treasury yields modestly. Now all of the charts in this update start on February 2nd of this year because for precious metals in particular it takes out the turbocharged highs that we saw in late January uh which skew the charts. So to keep everything consistent, all of the charts going forward are dated beginning February 2nd, about a month before the war actually began. So you can see on the 10-year Treasury yield in particular, it was skidding going into the start of the war, uh, hitting a bottom at 3.95%, it ran higher when the oil price surged. It came off a bit down to about 4.22% 22% where that green arrow is before oil started to rise again on that second oil price surge that we saw on the oil chart. And now that oil has softened, we've come off a bit with the 10-year Treasury yield. Meanwhile, the federal funds rate steady at 3.64%.

[00:09:00]So, it's bit immaterial right now. Uh, and this is what that same uh yield chart looks like on a daily candlestick basis.

[00:09:11]So you can see we got two uh parabas that show uh the yields coming down going into the start of the war then surging sharply higher on that initial oil surge easing a bit down to 4.22% and then rallying back up again uh when oil spiked again the second time but now they're coming off a bit. Now, if you look at the last four bars in particular, we've seen the yields really start to come off. And I've penciled in at to to the right, today's price action, uh, yield action rather, which takes the yield down to about 4.38% today. So, we're falling outside of that second parabola, and we're seeing a corresponding pump up in gold prices.

[00:09:56]And this is a same chart for the gold price which is inverted compared to the yields. So as the yields have fallen, gold has risen. And as the yields have risen, gold has fallen. And in particular, in just the last three trading sessions, those last three bars off to the right, you can see we had a modest uptick uh off of about 4520 uh on uh Wednesday. And then the last two days, gold has jumped. And that's where the gain has come this week. That $100 gain that I'm talking about uh because yields have come off. And now we've got an outlier off to the right of the chart there outside of that second parabola. But when you compare the second parabola uh of the two in both yields and gold, you can see how tight the direct inverse correlation between gold and yields has been, especially over the last four trading sessions. As yields have come off again, we've seen gold spike. So that's really what's driving precious metals across the board are yields and oil is driving yields. Now let's get into the nitty-gritty of the gold, silver, platinum, and platium charts.

[00:11:16]This is a full candlestick chart that goes back to February 2nd. Uh as we get into the right side of the chart after the second parabola uh really comes to a conclusion, you can see the gold price jumping in the last two trading sessions. Gold closed the market today at 4726 up $104 from last week. Uh I see the trading range today between 4500 where it bottomed earlier this week uh with a high at 4765 right now which is just a hair under uh the 50-day moving average coming in at 4790.

[00:11:57]We had that previous peak at 48.91 where the 50-day moving average was then. So the 50-day moving average is acting as a bit of a top for gold right now. Uh the 200 day moving average contrarily is all the way down at 4280. Uh where that major support level is at 4,300. But in the meantime, I see support for gold at 4500 with upside resistance at 4765 uh for a $265 uh dollar trading range. And gold is closer to the higher end of that trading range right now with second upside resistance at 48.40. So gold is looking pretty solid right now, but again it's going to react to the daily headlines of what's happening in the Persian Gulf and how that'll affect oil and then yields.

[00:12:45]So it's just a reflection of the daily news basically. And if we look at silver, we're going to see something very similar. Only silver is more volatile and it's reacting stronger right now to the changes in the market.

[00:12:59]Uh silver closed out the trading session today at $80.86 up $56 from last week. I see major support at 72 where that green trend line is with major resistance at 82 which we brushed up against yesterday before the market sold off a bit for a $10 trading range.

[00:13:22]Uh we've got the 50-day moving average at 7725. So the silver price is firmly over the 50-day moving average which is a good sign. But it's really got to get over 82 to signal a firm breakout. but it's biases towards the upside. The 200 day moving average is all the way down at $6320 per ounce. So, silver is looking stronger than gold in the short term and more likely to test an upside breakout over its most uh significant upside resistance level right now at $82. So, uh at $8086, it's pretty close to testing a breakout.

[00:14:03]We could see that next week as you watch this video. Moving on to the gold to silver ratio chart. Uh silver's been a little bit stronger this week. So the ratios come down. Last week it was about 60.4 to1. Today it's at 58.58 to1. So silver has gained a little value relative to gold in the last week. I see the equilibrium point for the two at 62 to1. So, silver's a little stronger, making gold just a little bit cheaper relative to silver in the current market.

[00:14:40]Moving on to platinum. Platinum closed out the trading session today at $2,030 per ounce, up 25 on the week. Uh, I see support at that major green trend line at 1960 that we bounced off of the last uh week or so in trading. Uh the 50-day moving average is coming in at 2050 and platinum is just under that today although we were higher than that yesterday. I see upside resistance at 2161 uh where we did peak about two weeks ago. Uh so the 50-day moving average is right in between support at 1960 and resistance at 2160 for a $200 trading range. Uh platinum looks pretty steady right now. I don't expect it to really test that upside resistance at 2160 like silver might test upside resistance at 82 in the coming few trading sessions.

[00:15:38]But again, it all hinges on what happens in the Persian Gulf and oil and yields.

[00:15:44]But platinum is looking pretty good.

[00:15:46]Meanwhile, palladium is weaker. Uh it's more defined by its two big moving averages than the other four metals. uh closed out the trading session today at 1480 down $68 on the week. It's the only metal that's off this week compared to the other three. I see support at 1440 uh which is the bottom of trading from uh last week uh with upside resistance at 1615 uh where it peaked right at the 50-day moving average about two and a half weeks ago. Meanwhile, uh the 200 day moving average is at 1495 and palladium is now a little under that. So that's going to become immaterial for support moving forward. But again, I've got support in the short term at 1440 and again at 1375. But platium is looking like the weakest of the four precious metals in price action right now with silver uh first and then pretty much a tie between gold and platinum for second place and how the prices have moved this week. So that is my precious metals update. Uh we did get US economic information this morning in the form of the non-farmms payroll report. Uh the US created 115,000 new jobs this past month which is pretty strong. So the US economy as far as jobs and employment goes is looking fairly robust right now or resilient which is good uh for the um US economy considering we're having to absorb a higher oil price in the form of higher gasoline. So that's a good sign for the US economy right now. Happy to see that.

[00:17:34]So, that's my update. Uh, if you're interested in physical precious metals, uh, this is a link to our getting started guide that features the most widely traded, competitively priced, and for you, easily sellable precious metals products. This is our website where we feature those very same uh, bullion coins and bars uh, in live online transparent pricing.

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