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It’s High Noon for Metals at 7:30 Central. Manic Metals Report 11/13/2026

By On November 13, 2026 - 8:36 AM · In Manic Metals Report, Market Commentaries
Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’ You might be asking why we’re calling it High Noon when the sun is barely up in Chicago. In the old Westerns, High Noon was when the train pulled in and the showdown couldn’t be put off any longer. For the metals this morning, that train is the Producer Price Index at 7:30 Central. Nobody leaves town until it gets here. And in London it’s already past lunch, so for the global metals crowd it really is close to high noon.
Why does this report carry such a big gun? The PPI measures what businesses pay at the wholesale level, and those costs work their way down to the consumer. Tuesday’s CPI already came in hotter than expected. If the PPI confirms that inflation is still moving through the pipeline, the Fed’s December hike goes from likely to locked in. So will gold and silver stand their ground on supply and demand, or will they fail and run from the inflation gunslinger? Strap on your six-shooter, partner. The metals are standing in the middle of Main Street.
Gold is trying to get back on its feet after getting shot up yesterday. December gold is at $3,896.10, up $10.80, after trading between $3,879.10 and $3,927.20 overnight. Reuters has spot gold up 0.7% at $3,903.19, after losing nearly 4% this week. On Thursday gold dropped 3% to its lowest level in more than a year. Oil rallied as hopes for peace in the Middle East faded, and that brought back fears of higher inflation and higher interest rates.
Here’s what’s unusual about this war. You’d normally expect gold to get a safe-haven bid when the bullets fly. This time the market is reading the conflict through the price of oil: higher crude means higher inflation, which means a tougher Fed, which hurts a metal that pays no interest. Nitesh Shah of WisdomTree says gold is oversold and undervalued, with good support around $3,850. That’s the line in the sand at the O.K. Corral. And even with the price of oil tanking it might be too late for the Fed to change course. The question is will the metals market see through that.
The headwinds of course are the sheriff and his deputy the dollar. The Fed is the sheriff in town, and it has already shown it will pull the trigger.
It raised rates in September for the first time in three years. The CME’s FedWatch tool now shows an 89% chance of a quarter-point hike at the December 8-9 meeting and an 11% chance of a half-point move. New York Fed President John Williams says inflation is still “far too high” and policymakers have more work to do.
The dollar is the sheriff’s deputy, and it has been riding high. The dollar index is back around 102. Last Friday it posted its biggest one-day gain in nearly six months after a blowout jobs report, and it climbed again after Tuesday’s hot CPI.
A stronger dollar makes gold and silver more expensive for buyers overseas, and higher rates make it more costly to hold metal that pays no yield. The metals are fighting that from two directions at once. A hot PPI would give the sheriff and his deputy a stronger hand and could push the dollar higher. A cool number could give the metals the opening they need to run the bad guys out of town.
Yet BlackRock is wanting not to bury gold at Boot Hill just yet.  Kitko reported Kristy Akullian, head of iShares Investment Strategy for the Americas at BlackRock, says it’s too early to give up on the metals. Gold hit a record above $5,000 an ounce early this year before higher real yields, a stronger dollar and profit-taking pulled it back. It’s now down about 10% for the year, but she says the long-term drivers are still in place:
Debt: US federal debt is above 120% of GDP, and deficits are running 6% to 7% of GDP. That’s not a fiscal picture that makes people want to hold less hard money.
Insurance: Since 2020, gold has averaged a 2% gain in months when the S&P 500 fell more than 5%, while bonds were roughly flat.
Central banks: 89% of central banks expect global gold reserves to rise over the next year, and a record 45% plan to add to their own. China and Brazil still hold less than 10% of their reserves in gold, which leaves plenty of room to buy.
New buyers: Tether, the stablecoin giant, has built up about 140 tons of gold. That would rank as roughly the 33rd-largest gold reserve in the world.m line: gold is a steady anchor for a portfolio, silver offers more upside with more risk, and returns are likely to be more moderate than last year’s.
Silver is quick on the draw and is faster and wilder than gold in both directions. December silver is at $49.96, down 10.5 cents, after trading between $49.55 and $50.725. Akullian says silver has been up to twice as volatile as gold over the past 20 years.
Silver also has a second job that gold doesn’t. About 60% of silver demand comes from electronics, solar panels and semiconductors, and electronics alone use about 445 million ounces a year. Data-center computing capacity has grown from about 1 gigawatt in 2000 to nearly 50 gigawatts today. Solar accounted for almost 29% of industrial silver demand in 2024, up from 11% in 2014. The gold-silver ratio is around 78, which tells you silver is still cheap compared with gold. Silver has to hold $50 after the PPI, or it could get run out of Dodge.
Copper got caught in the crossfire of the Nvidia shakeup. Bloomberg reports copper is heading for its fifth straight weekly loss, its longest losing streak in nearly two years. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange fell 0.8% to $13,484.50 a ton. It’s on track for its lowest close since mid-July and is down about 2% this week. Jensen Huang’s resignation as Nvidia CEO raised doubts about the AI data-center building boom that copper bulls were counting on, and hawkish Fed talk lifted the dollar.
December copper is at $6.159, down 3.7 cents. It’s still up about 8% for the year, helped by talk of a US import tariff, though some doubt that tariff will happen. Goldman Sachs still sees copper averaging $15,400 a ton next year but warns that cooler AI bets and weaker tariff expectations are risks. Aluminum fell 1.2%, and zinc and nickel were also weaker.
Palladium rode back into town this morning. December palladium is up $21.50 at $1,013, bouncing after yesterday’s beating and holding near a three-week high around the $1,000 mark. It’s a big comeback for a metal that hit a 16-month low earlier this month.
There’s a strong story behind it. In early November, palladium traded about a third below platinum. That gives automakers a real reason to switch back to palladium in catalytic converters where they can. Supply is also shaky. Nornickel in Russia, the world’s biggest palladium producer, warns that an overhaul at one of its plants could run into 2028. Sibanye-Stillwater, the only primary palladium miner in the US, just cut its 2026 US output guidance.
January platinum is at $1,517.40, down $3. Platinum is in a pause after a wild year. It ran to nearly $2,900 in January and has been grinding lower since. Hydrogen fuel cells and steady buying from China remain long-term supports, but the short-term deficit story has cooled. If the dollar gives up any ground, platinum and palladium have the most room to run among the metals.
The dollar and the Fed may have the faster draw right now, but the cavalry is still coming for metals over the long haul. Central banks keep buying gold, and many still have room to add more. Government debt and deficits keep climbing, which tends to support hard assets over time. When the Middle East war finally ends, lower oil prices could ease inflation fears and take pressure off the Fed to keep hiking. That could give gold a real boost. Meanwhile, AI, data centers, solar and electrification still need silver and copper, no matter who’s running Nvidia.
Supply is still shaky for platinum-group metals from South Africa and Russia. And new buyers keep joining the crowd, from Chinese retail investors to stablecoin issuers.
A hot PPI could push gold toward $3,780 and silver below $48.65, according to FXEmpire. A cool number could set up a short-covering rally, but gold needs to get back above $4,150 to change the trend. Buy the breaks in pieces and use stops, because this is no time to be a hero. “Gold’s been shot at so much this week it should be asking the Fed for hazard pay.”
“Copper’s on a five-week losing streak. It used to be Dr. Copper. Now it’s just Copper, and it lost its medical license.”
“At 7:30 it’s High Noon. If the PPI comes in hot, silver might ride off into the sunset, just not the way it wanted.”
“The dollar’s wearing the badge right now, but every sheriff in every Western eventually hangs it up.”
Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’ You made that promise when we wed  Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’ Although you’re grievin’, I can’t be leavin’ Until I shoot Frank Miller dead
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Phil Flynn

Senior Market Analyst & Author of The Energy Report and Manic Metals Report

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