The precious metal is now up more than 34% in the year to date

Gold futures set a fresh record high on intensifying concerns around the U.S. Federal Reserve’s independence, mounting interest-rate-cut bets and tariff uncertainty.

Continuous gold futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 0.8% to $3,543.80 a troy ounce in European midday trading, having reached as high as $3,557.10/oz earlier in the session.

The precious metal is now up more than 34% in the year to date on safe-haven demand, reflecting U.S. tariff-driven trade uncertainty and persistent geopolitical tensions, President Trump’s move to oust Fed Governor Lisa Cook, and expectations of a September interest-rate cut.

Gold miners climbed on the record, with Hochschild Mining HOC 0.40%increase; green up pointing triangle shares up 6.2%, Fresnillo up 1.7% and Harmony Gold up 4.6%.

Gold’s latest increase follows Friday’s in-line Personal Consumption Expenditure inflation data, which supported growing interest rate-cut expectations, SP Angel analysts said in a note. The data showed July consumer spending rose 0.3% on month, in-line with analyst expectations and leaving the Fed on track to cut rates.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell had opened the door to monetary policy easing in a speech to the Jackson Hole symposium on Aug. 22, with markets now broadly expecting a rate cut in September. Lower interest rates typically boost the appeal of non-interest bearing bullion. Investors are now awaiting Friday’s August jobs report for additional hints on the size and scope of potential rate cuts, ING analysts said in a note.

Trump has moved to fire Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud, with Cook suing to block her removal. Initial arguments at a Washington D.C. federal district court Friday left it unclear whether Cook was still serving in her role, raising uncertainty. The move potentially undermines the credibility of the Fed’s independence in the eyes of the market, raising safe-haven demand for gold and posing headwinds to the U.S. dollar.

An appeals court on Friday also upheld a previous court ruling that found a significant portion of Trump’s tariffs are illegal, leaving the future of the administration’s trade policy uncertain. The tariffs will be kept in place until mid-October pending litigation, but the decision has weighed on the U.S. dollar and sent gold higher.

Escalating geopolitical tensions have further contributed to gold’s safe-haven appeal, ANZ Research analysts said. A Russia-Ukraine peace deal remains elusive with both countries carrying out strikes on each other, while Germany and France push for secondary sanctions on nations supporting Russia’s invasion, including major buyers like China and India, analysts wrote.

Read the full article HERE.

Gold headed for a second straight weekly gain that has pushed it closer to a record high, as investors awaited an inflation reading that may prove key to US monetary easing this year.

Bullion traded in a narrow range around $3,410 an ounce on Friday, after data on Thursday showed the US economy expanded faster than expected. That raised concerns about inflation ahead of Friday’s US personal consumption print, which is forecast to accelerate. That could limit the Federal Reserve’s ability to cut interest rates.

Lower borrowing costs tend to benefit gold, as it doesn’t pay interest.

Traders were also weighing comments on Thursday from Fed Governor Christopher Waller — a key contender to succeed Jerome Powell as Fed Chair next year — who said he would support a quarter-percentage point reduction in September and anticipates additional cuts over the next three to six months.

Swaps markets see around an 85% chance of a rate cut next month, though beyond September there’s a high degree of uncertainty over how inflation and the US labor market will evolve as the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs feed through to the economy.

Growing concerns about threats to the Fed’s independence have also benefited the precious metal, after Trump this week moved to oust Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

Gold has gained 1.1% so far this week to inch closer to April’s all-time high of about $3,500 an ounce. Trade and geopolitical frictions, inflows to exchange-traded funds and central bank moves to diversify away from the US dollar have also supported bullion’s haven status this year.

Spot gold was down 0.2% at $3,410.18 an ounce as of 10:22 a.m. in London. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was up 0.1%. Silver, platinum and palladium declined.

Read the full article HERE.

Powell’s comments open door to September rate cuts as Treasury yields tumble

Last Friday in Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell finally – and grudgingly – admitted what the Trump team has been saying all along: tariffs don’t fuel inflation. 

At most, tariffs create a one-time adjustment in prices, not the kind of runaway spiral that demands punishing rate hikes. And even that one-time bump may be negligible if, as we have long argued, foreign exporters – not American consumers – shoulder most or all of the burden. 

The implication is clear: whether the impact is zero or merely a one-time step-up in prices, there is absolutely no justification for the Fed to hide behind “tariff uncertainty” as an excuse for overly restrictive interest-rate policy. 

This really is a historic epiphany from a Fed chair who has long misunderstood the power of Trumpnomics – the four beautiful horsemen of economic growth and price stability: tax cuts, deregulation, strategic energy dominance and fair trade. 

Trumpnomics delivered both strong economic growth and price stability in the first term. It is delivering again in the second. 

Markets immediately recognized the punch of Powell’s tariff epiphany. The Dow smashed through its 45,000 ceiling – and I remain on record predicting a march to 50,000. Yields on the 10- and 30-year Treasuries tumbled, driving bond prices sharply higher.  

Clearly, Wall Street got Powell’s dovish tariff message: the door to a September rate cut is now wide open. The only suspense is whether Powell will nibble with 25 basis points – or cut far more boldly. 

But here’s the lingering fear, from the West Wing to Wall Street: While Powell may now grasp that tariffs don’t fuel persistent inflation, he still doesn’t understand who pays. 

Memo to Jay: Every one of America’s major trading partners – the same countries driving our $1 trillion annual trade deficit – is deeply dependent on access to the U.S. market. When Trump slaps on tariffs, it is their exporters, not our consumers, who shoulder the burden. Without U.S. demand, their economies falter – so pay the tariff piper our trading partners must. 

That’s why in Trump’s first term, despite all the handwringing from the “Panicans” about looming inflation, tariffs on everything from steel and aluminum to China produced the opposite: robust growth with price stability. 

If Powell clings to timidity and keeps rates overly restrictive, he will continue inflicting enormous harm on the U.S. economy. American families are already being crushed by the world’s highest mortgage rates, small businesses can’t get affordable credit, and exporters face a dollar so overvalued it prices them out of global markets. 

Global rate spreads underscore just how out of touch the Fed is with the rest of the world. The European Central Bank’s deposit facility sits at 2%. The Bank of Japan holds near 0.5%. China runs its seven-day repo at 1.4%. Against that backdrop, the Fed’s 4.25%–4.50% target range remains a glaring outlier – more than 200 basis points above Europe, nearly 400 above Japan, and triple China. 

The result: the U.S. economy combines the world’s highest policy rates and mortgage rates with the world’s strongest currency – a triple hit to American exporters. 

On the home front, the Powell squeeze is just as punishing. Average 30-year fixed mortgage rates remain stuck in the 6–7% range, double pre-pandemic levels. That locks millions of young families out of the housing market and stalls residential construction — historically one of the most powerful engines of U.S. recoveries.  

Small businesses, reliant on bank credit rather than Wall Street bond markets, face double-digit loan rates that suffocate job creation. Consumers pay more on everything from credit cards to auto loans. 

And for what? Disinflation is already here. Headline CPI is back near 3% year-on-year. The Fed’s preferred PCE measure runs closer to 2.5% – essentially on target. Energy prices are subdued, supply chains have healed, and wage pressures are stabilizing. Yet U.S. real (inflation-adjusted) rates now stand higher than at any point in nearly two decades – a textbook case of over-tightening. 

Powell defends this stance by claiming the Fed must “anchor inflation expectations.” He has clutched his pearls over the mirage of tariff-driven inflation, even as history shows those fears are overblown.  

Powell’s Jackson Hole admission – that tariffs create, at most, a one-time price adjustment – was an epiphany long in coming.  The question now is whether Powell will act on that epiphany.  

A token 25-basis-point trim in September would not cut it. To realign America with its global peers, to relieve pressure on families and farmers, and to restore competitiveness to U.S. exporters, the Fed must move decisively with an up to a 100 basis point cut. 

It’s time for the Federal Reserve to stop mistaking tight money for prudence. Keeping U.S. rates far above the rest of the world is not a sign of strength. It is a policy mistake – one that strangles American growth and hands our competitors the advantage. 

Read the full article HERE.

Move to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook comes after the Supreme Court signaled intention to protect central bank’s independence

President Trump is pushing his drive for unilateral control of the U.S. government to new levels as he seeks to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, potentially crossing a red line the Supreme Court has suggested protects the central bank from direct political manipulation.

Since taking office, Trump repeatedly has taken aim at federal laws protecting a range of government officials from arbitrary dismissal, firing without cause Democratic appointees serving fixed terms to supervise agencies that oversee consumer safety, labor organizing, fair-trade practices and the integrity of the civil service, among others.

In a Monday letter published on social media, Trump told Cook that unproven allegations of mortgage fraud were sufficient cause for dismissal.

Cook, a Biden administration appointee, has vowed to fight Trump’s action. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” she said in a Tuesday statement. “I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022,” she said. Her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said he would file suit, setting up a case likely to reach the Supreme Court.

In a statement Tuesday, the Federal Reserve said the governors’ lengthy terms and tenure protection “serve as a vital safeguard, ensuring that monetary policy decisions are based on data, economic analysis, and the long-term interests of the American people.” 

The statement said the Fed would obey any court decision concerning Cook’s “ability to continue to fulfill her responsibilities as a Senate-confirmed member.”

Robert Post, a Yale law professor, said the stakes could hardly be higher.

“Everyone agrees that if a Fed governor is taking a bribe, they should be removed. It’s not controversial. So the question is, What is cause?” he said.

If courts permit Trump to remove Cook based only on his say-so, rather than requiring proof of wrongdoing, then the for-cause protection is meaningless, Post said.

In Cook’s case, Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee who leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, publicized the mortgage allegations and referred them to the Justice Department. But Cook hasn’t been charged with any civil or criminal violation.

The Federal Reserve Act, first adopted in 1913, provides 14-year terms for Fed governors, “unless sooner removed for cause by the President.” The statute doesn’t define cause, but laws establishing other independent agencies typically refer to neglect of duty, inefficiency or malfeasance as grounds for removal.

In 1912, President William Howard Taft dismissed two members of a federal board after an investigatory committee he appointed determined the officials had engaged in self-dealing, according to a 2018 law-review article by a University of Virginia law professor, Aditya Bamzai. Only one other president has removed a tenure-protected official for cause, Bamzai wrote: Richard Nixon, who in 1969 cited unspecified reasons to dismiss Fannie Mae head Raymond Lapin, a Lyndon Johnson appointee. Lapin didn’t pursue a legal challenge.

Behind today’s fight is Trump’s frustration at the Fed’s reluctance to cut interest rates, which could provide a temporary jolt to an economy that has seen little improvement under the president’s hand. Cook’s removal would create a vacancy allowing Trump to appoint a majority of governors.

Several other officials fired by Trump have sued to challenge their dismissals, quickly winning a series of early court orders allowing them to keep their jobs, at least temporarily. Judges cited longstanding Supreme Court precedent limiting the executive’s authority to remove independent agency officials without good cause. But in a pair of orders this spring, the high court itself has allowed Trump to dismiss the officials for now and suggested a readiness to reconsider a 90-year-old decision that limits presidential removal authority.

A May order approved the removal of Biden appointees from the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board. But the unsigned opinion from the court’s conservative majority signaled it would apply a different test for the Fed, by far the most powerful independent agency created by Congress. “The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity” with a “distinct historical tradition,” the court said.

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan suggested the majority had crafted “a bespoke Federal Reserve exception” to its likely expansion of presidential authority. 

The central bank’s “independence rests on the same constitutional and analytic foundations as that of the NLRB, MSPB, FTC, FCC, and so on,” Kagan wrote, joined by fellow liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. 

Some scholars agree that the court will have a tough time finding a clear distinction that shields the Fed from presidential interference while granting Trump nearly unfettered power to dismiss all other federal officers. 

“The Federal Reserve is not just a bank. It has tremendous regulatory authority,” said Ilan Wurman, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. “There is no executive power exception for financial regulators, and never has been.”

Independent agencies date from the 1880s, when the complexities of an expanding industrial economy led Congress to create a nonpartisan civil service and a class of expert bureaus characterized by a degree of bipartisanship and a measure of autonomy from each presidential administration.

A 1935 Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey’s Executor upheld that structure, which supporters argue promotes the public interest by partially insulating some policy decisions from political pressure and assuring some continuity regardless of shifting partisan majorities.

Some conservatives have argued that the Constitution places an indivisible executive power in the president himself—and that Congress has no right to abridge that authority by shielding appointed officials from removal at the president’s pleasure. That theory of a “unitary” executive branch gained currency in the Reagan and Bush eras and now appears to command a majority of the Supreme Court. Although it has yet to overrule Humphrey’s Executor fully, the writing is on the wall.

In June, the court granted Trump’s emergency request to fire three Biden appointees to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, overturning lower courts that sided with the commissioners under the 1935 precedent.

The unsigned opinion repeated the finding the court had made in May: The Trump administration “faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform her statutory duty.”

Read the full article HERE.

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US consumer confidence fell slightly in August as Americans worried more about their prospects of finding a job.

The Conference Board’s gauge of sentiment decreased 1.3 points to 97.4 after an upward revision to the prior month, data out Tuesday showed. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a reading of 96.5.

A measure of expectations for the next six months declined in August, while present conditions decreased to the lowest since April.

Consumer confidence continues to hover well below levels seen prior to the pandemic. The recent labor-market slowdown has added to economic concerns stemming from President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Job growth and wage gains have significantly slowed, and it’s become increasingly difficult for unemployed Americans to find a new a role.

The share of consumers that said jobs were hard to get rose for a second month to the highest since 2021. The share saying jobs were plentiful was little changed.

The difference between these two — a metric closely followed by economists to gauge the job market — fell slightly, continuing a steady decline over the last three years.

Deterioration in the labor market has become a focal point for Federal Reserve officials as they determine when to resume cutting interest rates. In a speech at the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole conference last week, Chair Jerome Powell left the door open for a potential interest rate cut at the central bank’s next policy meeting in September due to rising risks to the job market.

The share of consumers expecting higher interest rates in the year ahead increased, while fewer anticipated lower rates, according to the Conference Board.

Trump’s ever-changing trade policies have weighed on consumer confidence over the last few months as they anticipate higher prices. Consumers referenced those concerns in write-in responses to the survey, as well as prices for food and groceries. Inflation expectations moved higher.

The report showed buying plans for big-ticket items like cars, refrigerators and washing machines rose while vacation plans were down.

While consumers were negative on the job market, they were generally more upbeat regarding business conditions.

Read the full article HERE.

Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi continued to sound the alarm on the risk of a downturn, warning that states accounting for nearly a third of U.S. GDP are already in a recession or at high risk of slipping into one. Meanwhile, another third is treading water, while the last third is still expanding.

After saying that the U.S. is on the precipice of a recession earlier this month, Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi continued to add more granularity to his warning.

In social media posts on Sunday, he said his assessments of various datasets indicate that states accounting for nearly a third of U.S. GDP are already in a recession or at high risk of slipping into one. Another third is treading water, while the last third is still expanding.

“States experiencing recessions are spread across the country, but the broader DC area stands out due to government job cuts,” Zandi added. “Southern states are generally the strongest, but their growth is slowing. California and New York, which together account for over a fifth of U.S. GDP, are holding their own, and their stability is crucial for the national economy to avoid a downturn.”

For now, the Atlanta Fed’s GDP tracker points to continued nationwide growth, though it’s expected to decelerate to 2.3% in the third quarter from 3% in the second quarter.

Here’s how the states—and one federal district(*)—break down:

Last week, Zandi also put a finer point on his forecast. He said Moody’s machine-learning-based leading recession indicator put the odds of a downturn in the next 12 months at 49%.

While tax cuts and government spending on defense should help growth, that won’t come until next year. The base case is that the economy avoids a recession, “but not by much,” Zandi said.

“The economy will be most vulnerable to recession toward the end of this year and early next year,” he added. “That is when the inflation fallout of the higher tariffs and restrictive immigration policy will peak, weighing heavily on real household incomes and thus consumer spending.”

With the economy facing many threats, it wouldn’t take much to push it into recession, Zandi said, singling out a selloff in the Treasury bond market that would send long-term yields soaring.

And before that, he pointed out that more than half of industries are already shedding workers, a sign that’s accompanied past recessions.

Payrolls expanded by just 73,000 last month, well below forecasts for about 100,000. Meanwhile, May’s tally was revised down from 144,000 to 19,000, and June’s total was slashed from 147,000 to just 14,000, meaning the average gain over the past three months is now only 35,000.

Because recent revisions have been consistently much lower, Zandi said he wouldn’t be surprised if subsequent revisions show that employment is already declining.

“Also telling is that employment is declining in many industries. In the past, if more than half the ≈400 industries in the payroll survey were shedding jobs, we were in a recession,” he explained. “In July, over 53% of industries were cutting jobs, and only health care was adding meaningfully to payrolls.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Read the full article HERE.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is set to deliver what almost certainly will be his last keynote address at the central bank’s annual conclave during one of the most tumultuous times in its history.

What’s at stake is the near-term sentiment for financial markets, the longer-term path of the Fed’s policy trajectory, and a not insignificant dose of trying to preserve vestiges of independence at a time when the normally sacrosanct institution is facing enormous political pressure.

If Friday’s speech at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, goes at all like Powell’s first seven-plus years in office, it will feature a calm and collected veneer even if masking the weight that he and his colleagues have been under all year.

“He’s done a good job in terms of keeping the Fed’s independence, ignoring the noise and some of the questions he gets, and keeping it focused on the data dependency and the Fed’s dual mandate,” said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors. “He’s taken the high road as it relates to the Fed’s independence and some of the pressure he’s clearly getting from the Trump administration. So I think that he’ll continue to kind of walk that line.”

Indeed, President Donald Trump has kept up a near constant drumbeat against Powell and his colleagues. As he did during much of his first term, Trump has badgered Powell to lower interest rates. But in recent days the president’s attacks on the Fed have gone past mere monetary policy.

Earlier this summer, the White House lashed out at the Fed for a major reconstruction project at its Washington, D.C. headquarters. That coincided with a period when Trump toyed with removing Powell, though he later backed off the idea.

Then this week the administration trained its focus on Fed Governor Lisa Cook, accusing her of mortgage fraud regarding two federally backed loans she took.

Amid the controversies, Powell could use the speech to at least take a swipe at the political distractions, even if he holds to past practice of not taking direct aim.

Politics and policy

“He’s going to take a jab and talk about Fed independence, because what does he have to lose really at this point?” said Dan North, senior economist at Allianz Trade North America. “It seems pretty clear that Trump can’t legally fire him. He can certainly put all kinds of tremendous pressure on him. And I think it’s an opportunity for Powell to say the central bank’s got to stay independent, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Beyond the politics there’s policy, and that also will be challenge.

The speech is billed as an “Economic Outlook and Framework Review,” indicating Powell will take time to provide his views on broad conditions as well as discuss the Fed’s long-term policy goals, a review that occurs every five years.

Markets are expecting Powell to tee up a September rate cut. At each of his previous Jackson Hole speeches, starting in 2018, he indicated significant policy shifts. From pushing for quarterly cuts in that first speech to a pivotal switch in how it would view inflation in 2020 to last year’s nod towards an aggressive September move, markets have taken their cues from the chair’s keynote.

Wall Street commentary reflects similar expectations this time around, if in somewhat subtler terms.

“We do not expect Powell to decisively signal a September cut, but the speech should make it clear to markets that he is likely to support one,” Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle said in a note.

Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid, whose district hosts the Jackson Hole event, told CNBC on Wednesday that he isn’t sold yet on a September cut and will need to see more data. In fact, only Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman have overtly signaled they favor a move next month.

“We suspect that most FOMC participants who have expressed mixed feelings about cutting in September will be willing to support a cut if Powell pushes for one, but that he will think it more reasonable to make that case to them closer to the meeting with more data in hand,” Mericle said.

Inflation vs. unemployment

Key points to watch will be how Powell characterizes the labor market and his view on the inflation pass-through from Trump’s tariffs.

Shortly after the July Fed meeting, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced meager job growth for July and even weaker gains for May and June. However, multiple policymakers have used the word “solid” to describe the labor market, indicating they see less urgency for rate cuts.

Minutes from the July meeting indicated most FOMC members see a greater worry over inflation. Regional presidents Beth Hammack from Cleveland, Atlanta’s Raphael Bostic and Schmid in Kansas City have expressed skepticism about the need for a September cut, a position that could rile Trump and upset the market.

Powell “is likely to remain careful and not pre-commit in advance to a September cut, which could disappoint some investors,” wrote Krishna Guha, head of global policy and central bank strategy at Evercore ISI. “Much of his speech may try to provide a steady medium- to longer-term framing for policy strategy and inflation control.”

That framing could be critical as well, and is getting little attention from Wall Street so far.

Five years ago, against a backdrop of the Covid pandemic and protests over police brutality, the Fed adopted what it called “flexible average inflation targeting.” Essentially, the framework change would allow the Fed to let inflation run hot if unemployment was higher, particularly for underrepresented groups.

Over the next couple years, the Fed stood pat while inflation hit its highest level in more than 40 years. While most officials say the inflation targeting change did not play a role in the widely-held view that inflation was “transitory,” the policy is likely to get a retooling, with the Fed returning to its previous inflation stance that included preemptive action if inflation appeared to be rising.

“While the adoption of the new framework in 2020 was not the primary factor behind the Fed’s delay and the substantial inflation overshoot, it contributed to this outcome,” Matthew Luzzetti, Deutsche Bank chief U.S. economist, said in a note. “For this reason, we expect Powell’s speech in Jackson Hole to highlight changes to the Fed’s statement on longer-run goals that will reflect this reality. Specifically, we expect the speech to call for rolling back the 2020 modifications and restoring a primary role for preemption.”

Luzzetti added that the Friday speech “could arguably not come at a more important time” and he expects Powell to change his tone on the labor market.

Powell’s speech will be presented at 10 a.m. ET. The conference wraps up Saturday.

Read the full article HERE.

Applications for US unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level since June and continuing claims climbed, adding to evidence the US labor market is slowing.

Initial claims increased by 11,000 to 235,000 in the week ended Aug. 16. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 225,000 applications.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose to 1.97 million in the week ended Aug. 9, the highest since November 2021, according to Labor Department data released Thursday.

A sustained pickup in new filings risks adding to concerns about the labor market after the most recent US jobs report showed subdued hiring and higher unemployment. The latest rise in continuing claims indicates out-of-work Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to find another job.

The four-week moving average of new applications, a metric that helps smooth out fluctuations from week-to-week, climbed to 226,250 — the highest in a month.

Before adjusting for seasonal factors, initial claims declined, led by California, Michigan and Texas. Initial applications increased in Kentucky, Massachusetts and Iowa.

Read the full article HERE.

Gold edged higher as traders weigh the outlook for US monetary policy ahead of a key speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later this week.

Bullion traded near $3,330 an ounce as markets await clues from Powell’s annual address in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday. Swaps are pricing in a high probability the Fed will cut borrowing costs by a quarter point next month. Lower rates benefit gold as it doesn’t pay interest.

Still, the Fed’s monetary easing path has been complicated by a hotter-than-expected inflation print last week that caused some traders to dial back rate-cut expectations. In the face of mounting pressure from President Donald Trump for hefty reductions, Powell has expressed concern with import tariffs at the highest levels in a century.

Markets are also watching US and European efforts toward a landmark meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Any signs of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire could ease demand for the precious metal as a haven, but a peace deal is still elusive.

Gold has climbed more than a quarter this year, as trade-war fears and geopolitical tensions boosted its appeal as a safe asset, while central bank buying and inflows to exchange-traded funds also provided support. Though it has traded in a relatively tight range since reaching a record at roughly $3,500 in April, banks like UBS Group AG and Citigroup Inc. expect further gains.

Spot gold added 0.4% to $3,329.69 an ounce as of 12:22 p.m. in London. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was flat. Silver and palladium declined, while platinum gained.

In base metals, copper fell 0.2% to $9,675.50 a ton on the London Metal Exchange. Aluminum and zinc edged higher.

Read the full article HERE.