Gold dives below $1,800 on optimism for economic recovery
· Gold slumped 2%, breaking below the key $1,800 support level to a near five-month trough on Friday, as growing optimism about a quick vaccine-fuelled economic recovery and a smooth White House transition powered share market to fresh records.
· Spot gold slid 1.4% to $1,785.11 per ounce, earlier falling to its lowest since July 6 at $1,773.10 an ounce.
· The metal has shed about 4.7% so far this week, the most since the week of March 13. U.S. gold futures slipped 1.2% to $1,784 an ounce.
· “As soon as prices touched below the key $1,800 level, it triggered a sell-off. It is probable that prices might test the $1,750 level given we have a strong fundamental reason like the vaccine,” said OANDA analyst Craig Erlam.
· Further weighing on gold, U.S. equities raced to a record on the vaccine optimism and as investors bet on calmer global trade under a Joe Biden administration in the United States.
“It is believed that Biden will take a calmer approach towards trade with other countries like China and that is getting reflected in the stock market,” said Natixis analyst Bernard Dahdah.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that if the Electoral College votes for Biden, he will leave the White House, paving the way for Biden to formally take up the presidency.
“However, with ultra-low interest rates and prospects of more stimulus in the economy, gold looks robust in the longer term,” Dahdah said.
· The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led global central banks to keep interest rates at a minimum.
· Along with that, massive amounts of stimulus into the economy has raised concerns of a higher inflation, helping gold gain more than 17% so far this year.
· In other metals, silver dropped 3.4% to $22.65 per ounce and was set to post a 6.3% weekly fall.
Platinum rose 0.3% to $964.86 and palladium gained 1.7% to $2,424.56.
· CORONAVIRUS UPDATES:
· Hong Kong reports 4-month high 115 coronavirus cases
Hong Kong reported 115 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, including 109 locally transmitted, the highest in nearly four months, as authorities battle a renewed wave of COVID-19.
· Fauci says Christmas and New Year’s restrictions will be necessary due to holiday coronavirus wave
· UK secures 2 million more doses of Moderna’s Covid vaccine
Britain has secured two million doses of Moderna Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate, to be available in Europe as early as the spring, the government said on Sunday, in addition to the 5 million doses it secured from the U.S. company two weeks ago.
The new deal came a day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson named Nadhim Zahawi, a junior business minister, to be minister responsible for the deployment of Covid-19 vaccines.
· Oxford, WHO scientists say more data needed on AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine trials
More data will be needed from AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine trials to determine the drug’s safety and efficacy following concerns from experts in the U.S., scientists from the University of Oxford and the World Health Organization said on Friday.
· Singapore’s co-developed vaccine candidate is in ‘good shape’ for delivery in 2021
A Covid-19 vaccine candidate co-developed by Singapore scientists has shown positive interim results and could be available as early as 2021.
That’s according to American biopharmaceutical firm Arcturus Therapeutics, which is working with scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, to develop the vaccine.
Early this month, Arcturus announced positive interim clinical study results from its ongoing Phase 1/2 study of its vaccine candidate, ARCT-021.
He highlighted that this could possibly yield more doses in each manufacturing run, that will in turn save time and money.
The vaccine is on track to be shipped in early 2021, Arcturus said in a press release.
· Singaporean gives birth to baby with COVID-19 antibodies: report
A Singaporean woman, who was infected with the novel coronavirus in March when she was pregnant, has given birth to a baby with antibodies against the virus, offering a new clue as to whether the infection can be transferred from mother to child.
The baby was born this month without COVID-19 but with the virus antibodies, the Straits Times newspaper reported on Sunday, citing the mother.
· Coronavirus vaccines may help travel recover, but it may take years to fully rebound, experts say
As news of several effective Covid-19 vaccines offers some light at the end of the tunnel that is 2020, will a beleaguered travel and tourism industry — one of the hardest hit by the pandemic — soon begin to recover?
Possibly, say sources, but they caution that travel may take years to fully rebound and, no matter the timing, will likely look different than it did pre-pandemic.
“The news of a potential vaccine does hold promise for travel in 2021,” said Julie Hall, spokeswoman for AAA. “But … travelers need to be focused on knowing the risks of traveling and exposure in the here and now.”
· Black Friday shopping in stores craters 52% during pandemic as e-commerce sales surge
Traffic at stores on Black Friday fell by 52.1% compared with last year, as Americans by and large eschewed heading to malls and queuing up in lines for shopping online, according to preliminary data from Sensormatic Solutions.
For the six key weeks of the holiday season this year, traffic in retail stores is expected to be down 22% to 25% year over year, an earlier forecast by Sensormatic Solutions said.
· Biden team denies president-elect wants Democrats to accept smaller relief deal
Joe Biden’s transition team denied Monday that the president-elect’s advisors have pushed Democratic congressional leaders to agree to a smaller coronavirus stimulus package in order to win more relief now.
In public remarks, the former vice president has repeatedly supported the effort by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to approve aid legislation that costs at least $2.2 trillion. However, a New York Times report Monday said Biden’s team has urged the Democrats to strike an agreement with Republicans as soon as possible to curb mounting economic damage from the outbreak, even if it means cutting their desired price tag.
Biden spokesman Andrew Bates called the report “incorrect.” In a statement to NBC News, he said the president-elect “fully supports the Speaker and Leader in their negotiations.”
Leaders of the Democratic-held House and GOP-controlled Senate have not held formal stimulus talks since the Nov. 3 election. Both sides have yielded no ground as Republicans push for about $500 billion in spending — far less than what Democrats want.
· Chris Christie tells Trump to end election lawsuits, calls his legal team ‘national embarrassment’
President Donald Trump’s confidant former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday that the president should end his legal fights challenging the results of the election and concede to president-elect Joe Biden.
“They allege fraud outside of the courtroom but when they go inside the courtroom they don’t plead fraud and they don’t argue fraud,” Christie said, adding “you have an obligation to present the evidence, the evidence has not been presented.”
· Trump loses appeal of Pennsylvania election case
A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an attempt by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign to keep alive its effort to undo the result of Pennsylvania’s presidential election.
The blistering opinion from a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, all three of whom were nominated by Republican presidents, said that the Trump campaign’s “claims have no merit.”
· Trump will campaign for Georgia GOP Senate candidates, urges supporters not to boycott runoff elections
Trump will travel to Georgia on Dec. 5 to campaign for Perdue and Loeffler, according to White House spokesman Judd Deere.
· Trump says his election challenges probably won’t make it to the Supreme Court
· U.S. Supreme Court weighs Trump bid to bar illegal immigrants from census totals
The Supreme Court on Monday is set to take up President Donald Trump’s unprecedented and contentious effort to exclude illegal immigrants from the population totals used to allocate U.S. House of Representatives districts to states.
· China is more concerned by Biden than Trump, economist Jim O’Neill says
Joe Biden’s presidency will be a bigger problem for the Chinese government than the nearly four years of the Donald Trump administration, economist Jim O’Neill told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday.
Trump took a different approach to U.S.-China relations by unilaterally imposing tariffs on Beijing. The outgoing president often took to Twitter to lambast the trade practices of the Asian powerhouse, and he triggered a trade war with China that weighed down the global economy.
This differed starkly from a European approach, for example, which often pushes to negotiate commercial disputes with China using traditional institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the G-20.
But President-elect Biden is likely to also push for these agreements at a multilateral trade table, which could mean more concrete action when dealing with China.
· China to further expand outbound investor schemes: Xinhua
China plans to roll out an outbound investment scheme to new regions as it looks to meet onshore investors’ asset allocation needs, official news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday.
China will expand the Qualified Domestic Limited Partner(QDLP) trials already underway in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, Xinhua said, citing an unnamed official at the foreign exchange regulator.
It will also pilot the scheme in Chongqing city and the Hainan free trade zone.
· China’s central bank could intervene after ‘glaring’ state-firm bond defaults, analyst says
· Brexit goes down to the wire, as the EU and UK say big differences remain
The European Union and Britain said on Friday there were still substantial differences over a Brexit trade deal as the EU chief negotiator prepared to travel to London in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a tumultuous finale to the five-year Brexit crisis.
With just five weeks left until the United Kingdom finally exits the EU’s orbit on Dec. 31, both sides are calling on the other to compromise on the three main issues of contention — fishing, state aid and how to resolve any future disputes.
The two sides will shortly resume face-to-face negotiations after they had to be suspended last week when one of EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s team tested positive for Covid-19.
· Indian economy contracts for second quarter in a row, recovery seen next year
The Indian economy shrank for the second straight quarter through September, although it showed signs of a pick-up after the easing of pandemic restrictions that triggered a record contraction in the previous quarter.
India’s gross domestic product in July-September quarter contracted 7.5% on year, data released by the National Statistical Office on Friday showed, compared to a decline of 23.9% in the previous three months.
· Iran’s president accuses Israel of killing nuclear scientist, vows to respond ‘at the proper time’
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani on Saturday accused Israel of killing the country’s top nuclear scientist, believed by the West to be the architect of Tehran’s secret military nuclear program.
Iran’s clerical and military rulers have threatened revenge for Friday’s killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which could further increase tensions in the Middle East region and beyond.
Reference: CNBC, Reuters, Worldometers
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