Gold posted a second straight gain as investors weighed the impacts of new US sanctions on Russia and the outlook for economic growth.
The US is working with NATO allies to prepare for the possibility of Russia deploying biological, chemical or nuclear weapons as part of the Ukraine war, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a government report showed orders placed with US factories for business equipment unexpectedly declined last month for the first time in a year.
Photo: Bloomberg
The war in Ukraine and ensuing sanctions have pushed up commodity prices and fueled inflation, resulting in faster monetary tightening from some central banks while also threatening growth.
The US Federal Reserve’s more hawkish tone and higher US bond yields are weighing on non-interest bearing bullion, but gold is also benefiting from its appeal as a store of value.
Spot gold on Friday rose to US$1,958.32 an ounce in New York, up 1.3 percent for the week.
Silver and platinum advanced, and palladium was little changed.
Elevated inflation prints “and geopolitical uncertainty should drive gold modestly higher,” analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote in a note, forecasting US$2,000 an ounce in the second quarter of this year.
“We expect gold to come under pressure later in the year as central banks raise rates to combat inflation,” they said.
NICKEL
Nickel prices swung sharply in barely there volumes at the end of a tumultuous week on the London Metal Exchange (LME), in which futures spent most trading sessions locked either limit-up or limit-down.
Since reopening on March 16, Friday was only the second day that the nickel market remained within the LME’s new daily price limits as it seeks to reset after a massive short squeeze sent prices spiking.
However, the extreme lack of liquidity in the market has left it exposed to erratic moves — prices rallied more than 9 percent and then fell as much as 7.4 percent in just the first 45 minutes of trading.
The ongoing turmoil in the market is raising questions about the role and future of the LME as the place where benchmark prices are set for some of the world’s most important industrial metals.
The exchange has come under furious criticism for its handling of this month’s nickel crisis. Traders remain wary of the threat of another squeeze — there are still large short positions in the market that would have come under growing pressure during a two-day limit-up spike earlier in the week.
The LME suspended trading for a week and canceled billions of dollars of transactions earlier this month as it sought to rein in the runaway short-squeeze centered on China’s Tsingshan Holding Group Co (青山控股).
Trading has been effectively frozen for much of the time since the market reopened last week, with prices falling by a daily limit for several days. While the market saw some real trading on Tuesday, the price surged limit-up on Wednesday and Thursday.
Prices are still up 45 percent this month, set for the biggest gain since 1988, and the LME on Friday said it would nearly double the size of its default fund in response to the recent volatility.
Nickel was trading 5.5 percent lower at US$35,175 a ton on Friday, having earlier slumped by US$6,200 from its intraday high, in the second-biggest intraday swing on record, excluding trading on March 8.
South Korea’s equity benchmark yesterday crossed a new milestone just a month after surpassing the once-unthinkable 5,000 mark as surging global memory demand powers the country’s biggest chipmakers. The KOSPI advanced as much as 2.6 percent to a record 6,123, with Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc each gaining more than 2 percent. With the benchmark now up 45 percent this year, South Korea’s stock market capitalization has also moved past France’s, following last month’s overtaking of Germany’s. Long overlooked by foreign funds, despite being undervalued, South Korean stocks have now emerged as clear winners in the global market. The so-called “artificial intelligence
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
‘SEISMIC SHIFT’: The researcher forecast there would be about 1.1 billion mobile shipments this year, down from 1.26 billion the prior year and erasing years of gains The global smartphone market is expected to contract 12.9 percent this year due to the unprecedented memorychip shortage, marking “a crisis like no other,” researcher International Data Corp (IDC) said. The new forecast, a dramatic revision down from earlier estimates, gives the latest accounting of the ongoing memory crunch that is affecting every corner of the electronics industry. The demand for advanced memory to power artificial intelligence (AI) tasks has drained global supply until well into next year and jeopardizes the business model of many smartphone makers. IDC forecast about 1.1 billion mobile shipments this year, down from 1.26 billion the prior
People stand in a Pokemon store in Tokyo on Thursday. One of the world highest-grossing franchises is celebrated its 30th anniversary yesterday.
RSS