Gold and silver rise on bargain buying, India imports

Spot gold last traded at $3,962.60 an ounce, up 2.26%, after briefly slipping below $4,000 last week. Heraeus said markets are still pricing about a 76% chance of a 25-basis-point Fed hike in December after September PCE inflation accelerated to 3.6% year on year and core inflation rose to 3.1%, while the U.S. economy expanded at a 3.4% annualized pace in the third quarter.

That macro backdrop keeps the dollar and short-dated Treasury yields central to the gold trade. But Heraeus argued the break back below $4,000 could attract bargain hunters, much as it did in June and July when a pickup in Chinese demand helped underpin prices ahead of the August rally.

The analysts pointed to strong Chinese imports and official buying earlier this year, including non-monetary gold imports of 173 tonnes in June and PBoC purchases of 15 tonnes in June and 20 tonnes in July. They said the next key test will be China’s October reserve data, due in early November, to see whether official buying has sped up again.

Silver’s move was even more dramatic, with spot prices last at $50.987 an ounce, up 3.77%, and trading around the $51 level early in the session. Heraeus said India’s decision to issue permits for about 6,500 tonnes of silver imports over the next six months should ease a major physical bottleneck and support demand through the next two quarters.

The allocation is equivalent to roughly 209 million ounces, almost 90% of the 232 million ounces India imported in all of 2025, according to Heraeus. Imports had slumped to about 1 million ounces a month after licensing rules were tightened, but recovered to 15.5 million ounces in August and 11.0 million ounces in September.

The timing matters for investors because Indian buying typically accelerates into Diwali, which falls on Nov. 8 this year. Last year, imports jumped to 55.9 million ounces in October ahead of the festival, and dealer premiums have already eased sharply, falling to $0.45 an ounce from as much as $2.50 a week earlier and around $6.50 in July.

For miners and silver-exposed equities, the combination of softer physical tightness in India and a potential China-led bid in gold could help stabilize margins after the recent slide. Newmont, the world’s biggest gold producer, said its output remains on track to hit full-year guidance, underscoring that supply has not been the main driver of the latest price swing.

Investors will now watch U.S. rate expectations, China’s reserve data and whether Indian import permits translate into actual shipments rather than just paper demand.