Gold prices maintained their stability on Thursday as investors awaited the crucial US payrolls report, while silver rose above $35 an ounce for the first time since October 2012. 

Gold spot prices rose 0.6% to $3395 an ounce as of 11:47 GMT, while US gold futures rose 0.6% to $3419.

US President Donald Trump intensified his public pressures on Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, and compared the slow pace of the Fed to the rapid rate cuts by the ECB.

It comes especially after the abysmal ADP index, which showed far less job creation than expected in the private sector last month.

Silver surged 2.5% today to $35.83 an ounce, a 2012 high as investors flock to the white metal as a safe haven alongside gold. 

Platinum prices rose 3.6% to $1123, the highest since March 2022, while palladium added 1.8% to $1018.

Trump stated on Wednesday that the government debt ceiling should be abolished, agreeing with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren on the issue. 

Separately, the dollar index fell 0.4% as of 15:03 GMT to 98.4, with a session-high at 98.9, and a low at 98.3. 

The European Central Bank cut interest rates by 25 basis points to 2.15% at the June 4-5 meeting, the lowest since October 2022, matching expectations, and marking the seventh such rate cut in a row. 

Bitcoin held its ground above $104,500 on Thursday despite mounting concerns about the US debt levels and continuous warnings from notable figures such as Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. 

Bitcoin traded at $104,749 on Thursday, reflecting a modest daily decline. 

Armstrong warned that bitcoin could play a much larger role in the global financial system if US electors failed to demand a serious fiscal reform.

Similarly, Elon Musk repeated his sharp criticism at the pressures that government debt would represent to national resources. 

He warned that interest payments already eat 25% of total government revenue, and if the deficit continues to stack up, most of the budget will go to paying interest.

Mixed Views on Bitcoin’s Future 

Analysts remain divided on the short-term future of bitcoin, with some expecting a drop below $100,000 due to mounting geopolitical tensions and weaker technical indicators. 

Such a drop would threaten the increasing number of corporations which have started to stack up bitcoin reserves, data showing 51 listed US companies holding 673,897 bitcoin, representing 3.2% of total offerings. 

The Strategy company, previously known as MicroStrategy, has doubled its holdings of bitcoins in just two months, showing the level of exposure that some companies are willing getting into to the crypto market. 

New Whales Buy Up Bitcoins 

Recent data showed new whales are starting to stack up on bitcoins since last January, with their wallets holding over 1.1 million bitcoins so far, compared to just 100,000 bitcoins a year ago.

This compares to 2.4 million bitcoins on offer in supervised trading platforms.

ETFs 

It’s possible that such whales are actually the bitcoin ETFs, which started trading US exchanges last year. 

During this period, these funds collected over $44 billion of total net investments, which translates to over 500,000 bitcoins in the past 12 months alone. 

The IBIT fund owned by BlackRock alone owns 660,000 bitcoins, while the Fidelity fund owns nearly 200,000 units.  

Such aggressive hoardings by major institutions lowered the units on offer in the markets, with the amount falling to less than 2.8 million units by December as prices passed $100,000, before falling even further to 2.4 million units in recent weeks. 

The euro settled near six-week highs against the dollar before an expected ECB interest rate cut on Thursday, while the US dollar rebounded mildly after weak labor data. 

Recent data showed the US services sector shrank for the first time in a year, while the labor sector is showing signs of weakness as well, leading to a wave of US treasury notes purchases and boosting the odds of multiple Fed rate cuts this year.

The dollar index is up 0.37% today against the yen at 143.34, while rising 0.25% on  the Swiss franc to 0.82025.

The euro is little changed at $1.1416, approaching a six-week high, while the pound steadied as well at $1.3565.

Markets are on edge before the European Central Bank’s likely decision today to cut interest rates by 0.25%, the eighth such cut in 13 months, as eurozone inflation backs off recent highs.

The latest eurozone data showed consumer prices fell below the 2% ECB target, bolstering the odds of a rate cut.

Jobs Data

Markets await the crucial US payrolls report on Friday after the ADP index showed the private sector added far less jobs than expected last month.

The official government report is expected to show the addition of 130 thousand new jobs in May, and for unemployment to remain steady at 4.2%.

The markets were in turmoil since Trump’s aggressive reciprocal tariffs in early April, before freezing many of them and announcing new ones, sending investors away from US assets. 

The dollar’s weakness has been the main talking point in these weeks, with economists polled by Reuters expecting even more losses for the greenback amid persistent concerns about the US federal budget deficit.

The dollar index is down 9% so far this year to 98.87, and is heading for the worst yearly performance since 2017.

Trump Calls for Rate Cuts

US President Donald Trump intensified his public pressures on Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, and compared the slow pace of the Fed to the rapid rate cuts by the ECB.

Minneapolis Fed President Neil Kashkari acknowledged weakness in the labor sector but asserted the importance of more data before changing monetary policies.