Gold Spot Price $6496.62

Silver Spot Price $96.00

Platinum Spot Price $2599.47

Gold has continued its remarkable recovery, gaining around 15% during August and pushing to a three-month high near US$4,650 an ounce. Concerns surrounding inflation, government debt, bond markets and the ongoing Iran conflict have brought investors back to the precious metal, with momentum now firmly pointing upwards. After spending much of the year struggling to find direction, gold has recovered a large portion of its earlier losses in less than two weeks.

Meanwhile, Nvidia has been strangely quiet ahead of its earnings announcement on Wednesday. The company has become the market’s unofficial measure of enthusiasm for artificial intelligence, yet its shares have drifted lower over the past week without the usual burst of speculation accompanying its results.

Options markets are pricing in a movement of around 5.4% following the announcement, down from Nvidia’s average earnings-day movement of 7.4% across the past twelve quarters. That still represents a possible US$280 billion swing in the company’s market value, but the quieter expectations raise an interesting question. Is the AI market becoming more mature and predictable, or are investors finally becoming cautious about how much future growth has already been built into technology valuations?

Australia is facing its own uncomfortable set of numbers. The economy grew by 2.5% over the year to March, but inflation remains at 3.8%. Wage growth has also slipped from 3.3% in March to 3.2% in June, meaning prices are rising faster than wages and Australian households are continuing to lose purchasing power.

It leaves Australia in an awkward position. Economic growth looks reasonable on paper, but it is running below both inflation and wage growth, while wages themselves are failing to keep pace with living costs. The economy is still expanding, but for many Australians the practical experience remains one of going backwards.

Gold’s sharp rise, Nvidia’s unusually subdued lead-up to earnings and Australia’s widening gap between growth, wages and inflation all point towards a market becoming less comfortable with risk. Whether this is simply a quiet pause or the beginning of a broader shift in investor confidence may become clearer once Nvidia finally breaks its silence.

Enjoy today’s charts

Gold daily chart, with 50MDA