Will Gold Prices Take Off Again Amid Triple Game and New Regulations?

FX678, January 13—— Gold oscillates at high levels with hidden mysteries: Geopolitical risks and rate cut expectations support gold prices, but new margin rules and CPI data are imminent. In the fog of the long-short game, who will break the deadlock first?

On Tuesday (January 13) during the Asian and European sessions, spot gold slightly retraced, holding on to most of Monday's gains, currently trading around 4586 with a decline of -0.23%.

Core Drivers: Dual Support from Safe-Haven + Rate Cut Expectations, Geopolitical Risks Add Premium

Multiple favorable factors jointly support gold prices at high levels, forming a medium-to-long-term upward logic:

The Trump administration has launched a criminal investigation against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, reportedly stemming from Trump’s dissatisfaction with the Fed ignoring his pressure to cut rates. This event has shaken the market's trust in the objectivity of Fed policy. Coupled with expectations of two rate cuts within the year, it continues to weaken the dollar's appeal and provides strong support for non-interest-bearing assets like gold.

The Trump administration is not only evaluating potential military action against Iran but has also announced a 25% tariff on US exports from countries doing business with Iran, attempting to expand the global tariff strategy gains by creating reasons for escalation. The continued injection of geopolitical risk premium into gold prices has become an important driver for the upside.

Although the US dollar has strengthened periodically, concerns over Fed independence and rate cut expectations act as constraints. Furthermore, last Friday's nonfarm payroll report, though supporting policy stability in Q1, failed to attract substantial dollar buying, further reinforcing the safe-haven allocation attribute of gold.

Rule Change: CME Margin Policy Reform Cools Precious Metals Rally

Facing the continued surge in gold and silver prices, global commodity trading giant CME Group has officially restructured the margin pricing mechanism for precious metals to adapt to highly volatile market conditions.

The core of this adjustment is to abandon the traditional fixed-amount pricing model and fully switch to a percentage-based pricing system anchored to the nominal value of contracts, covering gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. It will take effect after the close of trading this Tuesday.

The old system has shown fatigue in this round of the market — with gold prices breaking through $4568/oz entering price discovery phase, and silver up 20% in the first two weeks of the year, speculative funds have forced CME to urgently raise margins at least three times in Q4 2025. The new mechanism can automatically adjust in real time according to price fluctuations, fundamentally reducing the need for frequent manual adjustments.

Specifically, the maintenance margin ratio for standard account gold futures is 5%, and 5.5% for high-risk positions; for silver and platinum, it is 9% (standard) and 9.9% (high-risk); for the more volatile palladium, it is 11% and 12.1%. CME also retains policy flexibility — if volatility breaks through historical ranges or in case of a sudden black swan event, the ratio can still be directly increased.

Christopher Wong, senior strategist at OCBC, pointed out that raising margins at current high levels may suppress precious metals in the short term, but in the long run, the new mechanism is better suited to risk hedging needs under extreme market conditions.

Notably, during the same period, the system outage at the Australian Securities Exchange exposed operational loopholes, sparking concerns about the stability of trading infrastructure. Meanwhile, CME's launch of prediction-based trading applications (covering S&P 500, crude oil, and sports events) in partnership with Vanda, and the establishment of its Dubai regional office, all reflect its efforts to expand business boundaries and improve its global layout to cope with the changing market as cross-time-zone trading activity rises.

Summary and Technical Analysis:

The recent geopolitical crisis and discussion about Fed independence have given gold a strong upward certainty. The strong gold market, facing passive selling pressure from CME leverage adjustments and disturbances from technology stock corrections, presents a rare retracement opportunity for gold bulls to position.



On the technical side, spot gold pulled back after breaking through the upper boundary of the ascending channel and is currently far from the 5-day moving average, indicating a need for adjustment.

The upper resistance is at 4700, and support is at the upper boundary of the ascending channel and near 4550 below.


(Spot gold daily chart, source: EasyFX)

At 19:11 Beijing time, spot gold is quoted at $4585/oz.