South Africa’s rand, stocks and government bonds strengthened on Friday, boosted by higher gold prices as worries over the United States’ worsening fiscal health sent investors into the safe-haven asset.
At 0929 GMT, the rand traded at 17.9150 against the dollar, 0.5% stronger than Thursday’s closing level.
Gold prices rose on Friday and were poised for their biggest weekly gain in more than a month, as a softer U.S. dollar and concerns over the country’s fiscal outlook boosted bullion’s safe-haven appeal.
Source – Reuters
Major stock indexes rallied, the dollar gained against the euro and other currencies while safe-haven gold dropped on Wednesday as investors grew optimistic about a possible de-escalation in the trade war between the U.S. and China.
“There seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel here in terms of the trade war,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
The euro was last down 0.36% against the dollar at $1.1379. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar strengthened 0.49% to 142.28.
U.S. Treasury yields declined after the U.S. administration’s signal of a potential respite in the U.S.-China trade war and Trump’s softening stance on Powell.
Source – Reuters
Gold prices were stuck in range-bound trade on Thursday as investors awaited U.S. non-farm payrolls data that could influence the Federal Reserve’s timeline for interest rate cuts.
Spot gold was down 0.3% at $3,347.44 an ounce by 1128 GMT. U.S. gold futures eased by 0.1% to $3,358.
The non-farm payrolls report due at 1230 GMT on Thursday is expected to show an addition of 110,000 jobs in June, down from 139,000 in May, according to a Reuters poll.
Spot silver rose 0.9% to $36.93 an ounce while platinum lost 2.7% to $1,379.95 and palladium retreated by 1.9% to $1,132.76.
Source – Reuters
Source – KITCO
“Current inflation measures, such as consumer price index (CPI) and producer price index (PPI), are significantly lower than previous 40-year highs. However, they remain ‘stubborn’ or ‘sticky,’ resisting a return to the central bank’s preferred 2% target,” Fidelity Digital Assets research director Chris Kuiper wrote in a report that asked: “Why is no one talking about stagflation?”—defined as a combination of low economic growth and persistently high inflation.
Source – Forbes
“We are breaking a fundamental bottleneck of traditional materials like copper,” said Asir Intisar Khan, who received his doctorate from Stanford and is now a visiting postdoctoral scholar and first author on the paper. “Our niobium phosphide conductors show that it’s possible to send faster, more efficient signals through ultrathin wires. This could improve the energy efficiency of future chips, and even small gains add up when many chips are used, such as in the massive data centers that store and process information today.”
Source – SciTechDaily
This move facilitates the company’s reinstatement of its securities to official quotation, following a consolidation of its issued capital and the settlement of various creditor liabilities.
These financial maneuvers are expected to strengthen True North’s operational foundation and strategic positioning in the mining sector.
Source – Tip Ranks
Gold inventories in New York are on a path to levels last seen at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with stockpiles in the city hitting $82 billion.
“People can’t get their hands on gold because so much has been shipped to New York, and the rest is stuck in the queue,” an unnamed industry executive told the FT. “Liquidity in the London market has been diminished.”
“London remains the major gold market in the world. If you are involved in that market and want to trade or use your gold, you really need to have it in London,” BoE governor Andrew Bailey told the U.K.’s Treasury Committee.
Source – Fortune
