Believe it or not but gold futures are within $US15 of topping the $US2,600 mark as prices lurched upwards on Thursday.
Silver futures also went for a nice little run as well.
Gold settled at $US2,587.30 – its high for the day and latest record and was around this level early Friday in Asia. The price jumped 1.9% at settlement from the day before.
The surge Thursday saw the World Gold Council’s Aussie dollar price top $A3,800 for the first time – it was around $3,807 in early Asia Friday morning.
Comex silver leapt 4.5% to $US30.23 an ounce while Comex copper was up 1.7% at $4.21.
That was after the issue dollar firmed a little to around 67.24 US cents as the greenback lost ground. US bond yields firmed a little after the Producer Price Index (PPI) came in showing a muted gain of 0.2% for the month, up from a 0.1% gain in July. The annual rate edged up to 2.4% from 2.3%.
The tame PPI report follows Wednesday’s as expected CPI outcome.
Meantime, the European Central Bank today lowered its main interest rate by 0.25%, to 3.5%. The rate cut was expected by the marketplace.
Now for Federal Reserve to lower its main interest rate next week.
And in Singapore, SGX iron ore futures closed with a small gain Thursday. The price of 62% Fe fines jumped 2.5% to $US95.05 a tonne.
The European Central Bank on Thursday delivered a quarter-point interest rate cut, marking its second reduction to the deposit rate this year.
The widely anticipated move comes after a period of sluggish economic growthacross the euro zone and cooling inflation, which fell back toward the central bank’s 2% target in August.
The ECB lowered its 2024 growth forecast to 0.8%, down slightly from an earlier projection of 0.9%, citing “weaker contribution from domestic demand over the next few quarters.”
For many market participants, the big question was not whether the ECB would cut rates in September — but whether the central bank will provide any clues as to what will follow.
The ECB’s Governing Council said in a statement that it “is not pre-committing to a particular rate path,” while reaffirming the need to take a data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach.
Economists are split over whether policymakers at the ECB will look to pause when they meet again on Oct. 17, as they had done in July, before potentially reducing rates by another quarter-point on Dec. 12.
The ECB’s meeting comes just days before the Federal Reserve appears poised to start its own rate-cutting cycle.
