$XTI $XAUT $XAG This week (the week starting March 23), precious metals and crude oil are showing extremely volatile and divergent trends, primarily driven by Middle East geopolitical conflicts (particularly Strait of Hormuz disruption/blockade-related events), USD strength, Fed hawkish expectations (sustained high rates + significantly cooled rate cut expectations), liquidity tightening, and other factors.

### Precious Metals (Gold, Silver)
The market is currently experiencing an extreme panic-driven selloff phase:
- **Gold**: Already crashed over 10% last week (the largest single-week decline in 43 years), continued collapsing this Monday (March 23) with successive breaches of 4500→4400→4300→4200→4100 USD levels in a single day, intraday lows touched near 4098 USD, with intraday declines at times exceeding 8-10%. Spot gold is currently oscillating around 4200 USD (trading in the 4100-4200 USD range during certain periods). Domestic gold prices have also plummeted sharply, with some quotations dropping to around 940 yuan/gram.
- **Silver**: Declined even more severely, down over 14-20% last week, continued plummeting this week, intraday price broke below 62 USD and 60 USD, with declines often 1.5-2 times larger than gold (the gold-silver ratio has rapidly risen to around 60-66x).

**Short-term Outlook (remainder of this week)**:
- Extremely high probability of **continued weak oscillation and downward pressure**, with potential for another round of panic selling. Around 4100 USD (gold) and 60 USD (silver) may see temporary stabilization, but as long as USD doesn't show obvious pullback and risk-asset panic sentiment doesn't ease, any rebounds will be weak and easily broken through.
- Main pressure sources: strong USD index + high-level US Treasury yields + liquidity tightness (private credit squeeze rumors, etc.) + some profit-taking/forced liquidations of leveraged positions. **Safe-haven attributes temporarily "malfunctioning"**, with funds preferring to seek USD cash.
- However, note: if Middle East situation experiences **extreme deterioration** (such as larger-scale energy infrastructure destruction, full-scale conflict escalation), gold still has potential for violent rally (but current probability appears low, as markets seem to be pricing in "stagflation + tightening" rather than pure safe-haven demand).

**One-sentence summary on precious metals**: This week very likely remains**more declines than rallies**, with gold probably grinding in the 4000-4300 USD range and silver in the 58-68 USD range, chasing shorts carries high risk, but bottom-fishing is also extremely vulnerable to being smashed again. A true major-level reversal requires seeing obvious USD relaxation or substantive de-escalation signals in geopolitics.

### Crude Oil
Situation is completely opposite to precious metals, currently the strongest commodity:
- Affected by severe transport disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz, both Brent and WTI have experienced explosive rallies, with Brent recently approaching 120 USD/barrel, currently pulled back but still oscillating at elevated levels of 92-107 USD (quotations from different sources range 92-107 USD, with WTI mostly around 94-100 USD).
- Early this week very likely to see **high-level oscillation or continued surges**, as long as Strait blockade/Middle East supply disruption messages show no substantive relief, oil price support from below is very strong (EIA and other institutions' near-term forecasts still suggest 95 USD and above).

**Short-term Outlook (remainder of this week)**:
- **Biased toward strong oscillation primarily**, upside targeting 100-110 USD or even higher (if conflict escalates further), downside has strong support at 92-87 USD.
- Risk point: if diplomatic breakthrough suddenly emerges/Strait quickly resumes normal traffic, oil price could plunge 10-20 USD in the short term, but current probability appears low.
- For medium to long term, many institutions still believe 2026 full-year average will decline (some forecasts in the 60-70 USD range), but near-term is completely dominated by geopolitical supply risk.

**One-sentence summary on crude oil**: This week very likely remains**strong at elevated levels**, buying on dips is safer than shorting, but position size must be light, always prepared for extreme geopolitical news-driven swings.

Overall one-liner: Precious metals continue under pressure from "safe-haven failure + USD crushing", while crude oil strengthens independently amid geopolitical supply crisis, the two completely diverged in the short term. Risk is extremely high, recommend waiting and observing primarily, light position trading or waiting for extreme panic before seeking low-ball buying/high-ball selling opportunities. Wishing you smooth trading!