Platinum prices spiked this week as deadly violence costing the lives of 34 people struck a platinum mine in South Africa.
Oil prices hit three-month highs on a number of factors, including positive US economic data and growing hopes of fresh economic stimulus by global central banks.
PRECIOUS METALS: Platinum prices hit the highest level since early last month, at US$1,462.50 an ounce, owing to the violence at a platinum mine in South Africa run by London-listed miner Lonmin. The metal’s price has risen about 4 percent since Thursday.
South African police on Friday said they fired only in self-defense in a clash with striking mineworkers, in which 34 people died. The workers at the Marikana mine were on a weeklong wildcat strike demanding a tripling of their wages from the current 4,000 rand (US$486) a month.
Gold prices, meanwhile, fell after an industry body said global demand for the precious metal had fallen to its lowest level in two years on weaker buying in main markets India and China, despite rising demand from central banks.
Worldwide demand fell 7 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, the World Gold Council said in a report.
By late Friday on the London Bullion Market, gold fell to US$1,614.75 an ounce from US$1,618.50 a week earlier.
Silver climbed to US$28.20 an ounce from US$27.88.
On the London Platinum and Palladium Market, platinum surged to US$1,455 an ounce from US$1,399.
Palladium gained to US$592 an ounce from US$578 an ounce.
OIL: World oil prices hit three-month highs before cooling on Friday on profit-taking.
Crude futures on Thursday reached the highest levels since May on encouraging economic figures in top crude consumer the US, traders said. New York oil hit US$95.69 a barrel and Brent US$117.03. The Brent price was for its September contract which expired at the close of trading on Thursday.
By Friday on London’s Intercontinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in October stood at US$114 a barrel compared with US$111.84 for the September contract a week earlier.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) or light sweet crude for September jumped to US$95.21 a barrel from US$92.30.
BASE METALS: Aluminum hit a near three-year low at US$1827.25 a tonne on Thursday.
By late Friday on the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months jumped to US$7,537 a tonne from US$7,440 a week earlier.
Three-month aluminum fell to US$1,857 a tonne from US$1,877. Three-month lead dropped to US$1,872 a tonne from US$1,898. Three-month tin rose to US$18,460 a tonne from US$17,785. And three-month nickel grew to US$15,467 a tonne from US$15,305.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day