Thursday's session was the quiet before the storm that has been building all week. Wednesday's July PCE data gave the dollar a modest intraday bid - the headline came in at 3.7% annually, a tenth above consensus - but the core measure held exactly in line at 3.3%, and that split prevented the dollar from extending its gains in any sustained way. The Fed hawks got their number; the doves found enough ambiguity to hold their ground. Nvidia's blockbuster earnings report, delivered after Wednesday's New York close, then lifted Asian markets for a third consecutive session and cleared the semiconductor anxiety that had been a secondary headwind to silver all week.
The level that mattered most on the day was $4,600 in gold. The metal was unable to reclaim it cleanly after Wednesday's PCE-driven selloff from above $4,696, and that intraday high from Tuesday now sits as the defining ceiling into tomorrow's session. Hold it on a Warsh dovish surprise and the primary uptrend resumes. Fail it on a hawkish shock and the $4,480 area becomes the next reference point.
The Qatar Prime Minister's visit to Tehran introduced genuine diplomatic momentum on Hormuz for the first time in weeks, which explains why crude extended its losses even with Hormuz flows at a three-month low. That is a market pricing forward resolution it does not yet have confirmation of.
Tomorrow is Warsh's first Jackson Hole keynote at 15:00 UK time - the single most consequential piece of central bank communication this year. The full briefing carries the specific level-by-level playbook for EUR/USD, USD/JPY, gold and crude across both the hawkish and dovish scenarios, along with the overnight Tokyo CPI risk for GBP/JPY. Subscribe to Markets Mastered for the complete positioning framework before the open.