The Federal Reserve has been slow to cut interest rates, and the strong dollar along with the high-interest-rate environment continues to suppress the entire commodities market.

$CL
Crude oil is currently caught in a "supply and demand double kill" dilemma.
Supply side: The ceasefire negotiations between the US and Iran have eased geopolitical tensions, and the Strait of Hormuz has resumed navigation. After the ceasefire news was announced, the benchmark US crude oil price has already fallen sharply by about 14%.
Demand side: Even worse: The International Energy Agency (IEA) has revised down its global oil demand forecast for 2026 from an increase of 730k barrels per day last month to a contraction of 80k barrels per day, with a projected year-over-year decline of as much as 1.5 million barrels per day in the second quarter.
Gold's current situation is very awkward.
Geopolitical conflicts should theoretically benefit gold, but rising oil prices have driven inflation expectations higher, which in turn has forced the Federal Reserve to delay rate cuts, turning it into a bearish factor. After the March policy meeting, the Fed's dot plot showed only one rate cut expected for the entire 2026 year, and even seven officials believed rate cuts were unnecessary.
The funding situation is even worse: In March, commodities ETFs experienced a record outflow of about $11 billion, with gold ETFs alone losing over $7 billion.
$XAU
Silver is like an "amplifier" of gold.
Its industrial properties make silver more sensitive to global growth slowdown than gold. Currently, high oil prices are also dampening global demand expectations, and silver's industrial attributes create a clear drag, making it difficult for silver to fully replicate gold's safe-haven logic. Plus, silver's positions are more crowded than gold's, so once stop-profit or passive liquidation triggers, silver's decline usually exceeds that of gold.
Rising oil prices have boosted inflation expectations, forcing the Federal Reserve to maintain high interest rates, and the strong dollar in turn suppresses all dollar-denominated commodities. Market expectations for rate cuts have shifted from "when will they come" to "whether they will come at all."