Gold hasn’t been acting like itself lately
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Meta and OpenAI will be among the first customers of Arm’s long-awaited new AI processor, the haven asset gold hasn’t been looking like its usual self, and Volkswagen is in talks to switch production at one its factories from cars to missile defence for Israel. Plus, Lebanon is worried Israel will push further into its southern region and occupy it.
Mentioned in this podcast:
Arm launches own AI chip in high-stakes strategy shift
Unhedged: Is gold an unsafe haven asset?
Listen to the Unhedged podcast here
VW to shift from cars to missile defence in deal with Israel’s Iron Dome maker
The sum of all fears for Lebanon
Note: The FT does not use generative AI to voice its podcasts
Today’s FT News Briefing was hosted and edited by Marc Filippino, and produced by Sonja Hutson. Our show was mixed by Kelly Garry. Additional help from David da Silva. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s Global Head of Audio. The show’s theme music is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, March 25th, and this is your FT News briefing. |
| 0:08.4 | The chip industry just got a little bit more competitive, and investors are ditching a safe haven asset at an incredibly surprising time. |
| 0:17.4 | Plus, we'll take a look at why Lebanon is bracing for a land offensive from Israel. |
| 0:22.5 | I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day. |
| 0:33.9 | The chip designer arm is now the chip maker arm. |
| 0:38.1 | The company's CEO, Renee Haas, unveiled its new AI processor yesterday. |
| 0:42.7 | He called it a defining moment for the company, and it's hard to argue with that. |
| 0:47.3 | Arm is known for designing chips for other companies. |
| 0:50.4 | Now it's producing them itself, and the move will put the company in competition with some of its own |
| 0:55.5 | customers like Google, Nvidia, and Amazon. Arm already has some companies lined up to buy its chips. |
| 1:02.5 | It says meta will be the lead partner for its processor. Another early customer is ChatGPT maker OpenAI. |
| 1:09.3 | Now there are pros and cons to arms move. |
| 1:11.9 | Analysts say that producing its own chips will probably create much higher revenues, |
| 1:15.9 | but moving into hardware will likely hit its gross margins, |
| 1:19.9 | which are some of the tech industry's highest. |
| 1:35.4 | You probably remember me saying on this show, maybe hundreds of times, that gold is a safe haven asset. |
| 1:39.1 | Investors look to it when the world is upside down and they need a little comfort. |
| 1:44.0 | Well, the world is upside down and gold isn't really doing what it's supposed to. |
| 1:48.7 | Here to impact this yellow mystery is the FTs U.S. financial commentator Rob Armstrong. |
| 1:55.2 | He writes our unhaged newsletter. Hi, Rob. Hi, Mark. So just a little background, gold was near an all-time high right around the time the U.S. and Israel began their strikes on Iran at the end of |
| 2:00.4 | February. |
| 2:06.1 | Gold has fallen off a cliff since then. Seems like it should have done the complete opposite of that. |
... |
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