Rising 10-Year Yield Pushes Oil, Gold, Silver, Copper Lower

Oil, gold, silver and copper fell on Wednesday as rising U.S. Treasury yields and a firmer dollar weighed on non‑yielding assets and reduced a geopolitical risk premium that had supported energy earlier this year.

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 2.04% to $90.57 and Brent lost 1.51% to $94.84. Silver declined 2.54% to $74.95 and copper eased 0.34%. Gold retreated about 0.5%.

Traders attributed the broad selling to higher real yields and a stronger dollar rather than a single supply shock or new geopolitical event. Market participants had earlier flagged an unwind of the premium tied to tensions around the Strait of Hormuz. The WTI‑Brent spread narrowed from minus $14.45 on March 15 to about minus $5.69 this week, reflecting roughly a 60% compression of the Brent premium.

The U.S. 10‑year Treasury yield stood near 4.47%, within range of a 2026 peak around 4.68% and up nearly 13% over three months. The U.S. dollar index was near 99.11, with technical support identified at 98.92. The Federal Reserve funds rate remains at 3.50%–3.75%, and futures pricing in mid‑May showed roughly a 50% probability of an additional Fed hike by December.

Positioning data for the week ending May 19 showed non‑commercial traders reduced Brent longs by 6,474 contracts and added 458 shorts. Commercial traders, typically producers and hedgers, added 4,719 longs and cut 2,531 shorts.

Technical indicators in Brent displayed weakening momentum. Between Feb. 11 and May 26, Brent printed higher price highs while the daily Relative Strength Index printed lower highs, a bearish divergence. Brent was trading near the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement at about $94.61. A daily close below $88.99, the 0.786 Fibonacci level, was identified as a trigger for a deeper move toward $81.84, with a further extension to $61.19 noted as a full retrace level. A reclaim of $98.55 and then $102.50 was cited as the path to invalidate the bearish technical setup.

Analysts and traders highlighted three developments to watch for market direction: further compression in the Brent‑WTI spread, the path of the 10‑year Treasury yield, and whether the dollar breaks below the $98.92 support level. Traders view that if oil holds above $88.99 while yields remain elevated, trading could be range‑bound; if oil closes below that level and yields stay firm, a slide into the $80s would become more likely.