US gold futures jumped above $US1,200 an ounce overnight and are now at highs not seen since last November and the early days of the post-Trump election boomlet.

Iron ore prices have started 2017 with something of a bang – hitting two year highs well above $US80 a tonne in the past day or so as Chinese steel mill buyers and speculators resume their chase of the commodity.

Now we know why commodity prices rallied so strongly in the closing months of 2016 – China was an aggressive, consistent buyer of products of all types – especially those favoured by Australia such as iron ore, coal, copper, oil and gas.

Australian bank shares have risen by around 20% since the election of Donald Trump on November 8, much to the disbelief and consternation of the usual suspects among the bears and gloom and doom merchants.

Who would have thought there would have been so much money in frames and glasses – but the Financial Times yesterday broke the story that Italy’s Luxottica and France’s Essilor have agreed to a 50 billion euro merger – which the paper says would be one of the largest ever European cross-border transactions.

The two year slide in US oil production seems to be nearing the end, according to the Energy Information Administration which raised its 2017 output forecast and says it is looking for a year-on-year rise in output in 2018.

Put not your faith in forecasts as the only way of looking at future price movements – if anything the surge in iron ore (and coal) prices in the closing half of 2016 should have rammed home the inadequacy of price forecasts to investors and others as an accurate guide.

The US 4th quarter reporting season gets underway in a couple of days, without the usual early releaser in aluminium giant, Alcoa, which has now split itself into two separate companies and will report later in the season.

The Fed’s rate rise decision and its hawkish outlook for 2017 crunched gold badly overnight, driving it to 11-month lows, with the prospect of more to come.

Donald Trump reckons that Exxon Mobil CEO, Rex Tillerson is a “world-class player”, but the nitty gritty of financial comparison shows him to be a bit of a dud – a laggard in terms of financial performance and strategic thinking – outclassed by industry Number 2, Chevron and a host of CEOs of tech stars like Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.

Is this as good as it will get for Chinese steel mill demand, and in turn for the prices of iron ore, coking coal and the return of the commodity price boom?

Global oil rose to an 18-month high overnight Monday after OPEC and some of its rivals reached their first deal in 15 years to reduce output to try and control global oversupply.

There will be a lot of rot written about the proposed mop up of Sky by 21st Century Fox (how evil it is etc), but there are two facts is that life to be confronted.

Sharemarkets are poised to run higher this week, even though the US Federal Reserve is widely expected to lift its key interest rate for the second December in a row.

Twelve months after the first US rate rise happened in 8 years, the second in nine years will be revealed in the early hours of Thursday morning, Sydney time when the US Federal Reserve issues its statement for the final meeting of 2016.

The stronger dollar hit commodity prices, but oil traders wondering about the strength of the November 30 OPEC production cap agreement will now have to confront news that some major non-OPEC producers will join the deal.

US gold futures had another off trading week, and finished Friday at their lowest levels since February, for the fifth weekly loss in a row.

If there was any doubt the Chinese economy is on the rise, then the November trade figures, especially the import data for major commodities in November should provide confirmation.

So now we know – the three months to the end of September saw the economy shrink 0.5%, the biggest contraction since the December quarter of 2008 when the GFC was erupting over the global economy and the economy contracted by 0.7%. The last contraction was in the March quarter of 2011 when the economy shrank 0.2% (originally reported as a fall of 1.2%).

The global rebound continues on financial markets and the Dow overnight cracked the 19,500 mark for the first time to take its Donald Trump rally to more than 1,200 points.

The slump is gone, long live the slide? Overnight Wednesday a consortium of Glencore and the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar became the latest groups to signal the long period of contraction in resources, especially oil and gas, is over when they combined to buy a stake in Russia’s giant state oil group, Rosneft for a huge $10.5 billion euros – or nearly $A15 billion.

The Reserve Bank kept interest rates on hold for the summer holidays yesterday at a record low and made little change the post meeting statement from Governor Phil Lowe.

Funnily enough there’s not to much attention being paid to today’s meeting of the Reserve Bank board which will consider the level of interest rates one last time for 2016.

Gold down, and it was a case of vote, what vote in Italy? Crisis, what crisis after the country’s PM quit after his reform referendum was defeated by sceptical Italian voters.