Spot silver touched a low of $72/oz, down 3.54% intraday.

Fed Governor COOK said current risks to the Federal Reserve's dual mandate are elevated on both fronts.

Swap market pricing shows traders put the probability of a BOJ rate hike at about 75% for June and 92% for July. Michio Saito of Nomura Capital Markets Research Institute said the Iran war could push oil higher and weigh on energy-importing Japan, making the BOJ more cautious about tightening. Saito, who served until 2023 as a senior bond policy official at Japan’s Ministry of Finance, said, “The timing for a rate hike has actually arrived, or at least is very close… but I am not sure the BOJ policy board’s path to a hike will be smooth.” He added that JGB yields may have risen excessively amid market concerns about inflation and a possible expansion of government fiscal spending. Japan’s 10-year government bond yield briefly rose to 2.8% on May 18, its highest since 1996; Saito said that level is currently too high relative to other parts of the JGB curve and that a reasonable range for the 10-year is about 2.0%–2.5%. He warned that if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, market worries over oil and LNG supply would intensify and, for Japan, “the risk is no longer just higher prices; economic activity itself could stall.”