Gold and silver plummet! US stocks suddenly change! Regarding interest rate cuts, the Federal Reserve's latest statement!

U.S. stocks plunged during overnight trading. On February 12, international gold and silver prices opened sharply lower. The Federal Reserve’s rate cut took an unexpected turn.

On February 11, the three major U.S. stock indices closed slightly lower, with the Dow down 0.13%, the Nasdaq down 0.16%, and the S&P 500 down 0.01%.

In individual stocks, Google and Microsoft fell over 2%, Amazon dropped more than 1%, Intel rose over 2%, and Nvidia, Apple, and Tesla saw slight gains. Storage concept stocks surged, with SanDisk up over 10% and Micron Technology up over 9%.

On the news front, media reports indicate that Apple’s upgrade to Siri virtual assistant faced testing obstacles, potentially delaying the release of several highly anticipated features.

Regarding Chinese concept stocks, the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index fell 0.65%. China Telecom rose over 12%, Kingsoft Cloud increased 10%, TSMC rose over 3%, Bilibili and NIO gained more than 2%; NetEase dropped over 4%, and iQiyi declined over 2%.

International gold and silver prices rose, with COMEX gold futures up 1.53% at $5,107.8 per ounce; COMEX silver futures increased 4.6% to $84.085 per ounce. On February 12, spot gold and silver prices opened sharply lower after the market opened.

On the news front, U.S. President Trump held a closed-door meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on the 11th. He later posted on social media that reaching an agreement with Iran would be the “preferred” option for the U.S. Trump described the meeting as “very good” but stated that, apart from his insistence on continuing negotiations with Iran in hopes of reaching an agreement, no substantial results had been achieved between the U.S. and Israel.

Analysts say that the U.S. January non-farm payrolls data far exceeded expectations, indicating that the economic fundamentals remain solid, reducing the likelihood of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve before mid-year. Traders have delayed expectations of a Fed rate cut until July.

Citibank predicts the Fed will start cutting rates in May, earlier than their previous forecast of March.

Fed Governor Harker stated that current interest rates are roughly at a neutral level; he believes it is correct for the Fed to hold steady for now and sees no need for fine-tuning monetary policy. Harker also mentioned that the rise in gold and metal prices could be related to inflation.

Fed Governor Mester said there are still many reasons to lower rates; if nominated, she would be willing to continue serving on the Federal Reserve.

According to CME’s “FedWatch”: the probability of the Fed cutting rates by 25 basis points in March is 5.9%, with a 94.1% chance of holding rates steady. The probability of a 25 basis point cut by April is 20.5%, with a 78.5% chance of no change, and a 1% chance of a 50 basis point cut. The chance of a 25 basis point cut by June is 48.1%.