SILVER PRICES touched a 3-week high on Monday morning in London, while gold stayed firm and the Dollar fell again amid fresh political turmoil around US President Donald Trump, writes Steffen Grosshauser at BullionVault.
The US Dollar fell to its lowest Euro value since last November – just before Trump’s White House victory – as the President’s first foreign tour saw accusations of “double-speak” towards Saudi Arabia followed by a near-boycott amongst Israeli politicians of his arrival at Ben-Gurion airport.
Asian stock markets made their biggest daily increase in a month despite North Korea’s Communist regime declaring “successful” tests of missiles capable of reaching across the Pacific.
Silver prices jumped 1.2% at the start of Asian trade, dropping back only to reach $17.08 per ounce again at lunchtime in London.
Gold in contrast remained largely unchanged around last week’s close of $1255 per ounce.
“We would advocate abandoning our recent side-lined stance and would buy gold on any significant setback,” says US brokerage INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir.
“The $1300 level is within reach” in the second half of the year if the political situation worsens, reckoned Australia and New Zealand Bank Group (ANZ) commodity strategist Daniel Hynes last Friday.
But “fundamentally, we remain bearish on the yellow metal, underpinned by two more rate hikes by the US central bank in 2017,” countered Singapore-listed bank OCBC’ analyst Barnabas Gan, suggesting that rising interest rates imply a higher opportunity cost of holding bullion like gold and silver.
Global equities meanwhile continued to rebound from last week’s drop on Monday, with the FTSE 100 index of leading shares in London breaking above 7,500 again while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed 0.9% higher.
Brent crude oil bettered last week’s 5.5% rally by edging up 0.5% to $54 per barrel after Saudi Arabia and Russia signalled that Opec-led production cuts may be extended beyond the initial deadline of March next year.
Even against the falling US Dollar however, the British Pound fell back below $1.30 as UK Prime Minister Theresa May made a U-turn on forcing senior citizens to mortgage their homes to pay for all but £100,000 of any old-age care bills – a key plank of last week’s Conservative manifesto for 8 June’s General Election.
The Tories’ lead over self-declared Marxist Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party fell at the weekend into single-digits according to a new survey by pollsters YouGov for the Sunday Times.
