Auto shares dip, currencies fluctuate

Gold saw record investor inflows over the past four weeks, with investors scrambling for safe havens as the Trump administration’s tariff policies threatened to reorder global trade alliances.

Investors poured another $1 billion into gold in the past week, pushing four-week inflows to a record $9.9 billion, according to BofA Global.

Source – Market Watch

“Gold bars are bought as a hedge” against tariff-related downside risks to stocks as well as U.S. and global economic growth, commodity analysts at Citigroup said in a research note on Friday after the U.S. stock market’s close. “In precious metals, we see gold moving higher very near term” to $3,000 per ounce, they wrote.

“Gold has soared to another record high today amid a further ratcheting up in trade tensions,”  said Joe Maher, assistant economist at Capital Economics, in a note Monday. “Concerns that gold may get caught in the trade-war crossfire may also have led U.S. investors to buy up gold in order to get ahead of any future tariffs that might affect U.S. gold imports.”

Source – Market Watch

Australia has not escaped the threat of increased tariffs on its exports to the U.S., but it does have one world-class industry which is reveling in commodity market confusion, gold.

Both Citi and RBC Capital Markets see the gold price continuing to rise while the Resources Department of the Australian Government is forecasting an increase in national output from 286 tons this year to 309 tons next year, cementing Australia’s position as the world’s third biggest gold producer after Russia and China.

Gold’s rise in U.S. dollars is magnified in Australia by the currency effect with an exchange current rate of US63 cents delivering an Australian gold price of A$4903/oz, a record which easily eclipses all earlier gold booms.

Source – Forbes