GOLD PRICES slipped but held on track for the highest Friday finish since July for Dollar and Euro investors today, as the United States issued what one analyst reckons is a "final warning" to China over currency manipulation and Italy's cost of borrowing rose to new 5-year highs compared to German Bund yields.
Trading $5 below Monday's spike to 12-week highs at $1233 per ounce, gold prices have now risen for 3 weeks running – the longest stretch of US Dollar gains since January.
Crude oil rose back above $80 per barrel of Brent after US President Donald Trump also said
"it certainly looks that" the Saudi government murdered US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, warning of
"very severe" consequences – a threat already challenged by the oil-producing kingdom.
Priced in the falling
Euro currency gold headed for its highest weekly finish since June at €1071 per ounce, rising 4.4% so far in October as the EuroStoxx 600 index has lost 5.7%.
With Rome's coalition government meantime facing a showdown with its EU partners over 2019's deficit spending plans, the spread of Italy's borrowing cost over comparable German Bunds today
touched 340 basis points, a new 5-year high.
Refraining from calling China a "currency manipulator" – a charge Beijing has repeatedly denied – the US Treasury last night said
Washington is "deeply disappointed" the politburo won't say when or if it intervenes in the FX market.
The Yuan today slipped to its lowest in 22 months, helping push the gold price for households and investors in the metals No.1 consumer market up to the highest since January.
Over in No.2 consumer market India, reports today varied wildly over the level of household gold demand during the Hindu calendar's key festive season, set to culminate with Diwali in early November.
"Gold continues to be a safe haven for investors,"
DNA quotes Surendra Mehta of the Indian Bullion & Jewellers Association (IBJA), "especially when they are rapidly withdrawing money from equity, bonds and Non Banking Finance Companies."
But "gold jewellery sales have declined by 30%" from this time last year, the
Times of India quotes Ahmedabad jeweler Kishore Zaveri.
"Only those who plan to buy jewelry for regular usage or weddings have
pushed their purchases to this day," he says, referring to Thursday's Dussehra festival of good-defeating-evil.
"Markets around Delhi are still waiting for festival shoppers," agrees the
National Herald.
"According to shopkeepers, customers
don't have the money to splurge" thanks to the Rupee falling to new all-time lows in 2018, driving living costs higher and taking gold prices to multi-year highs.
Gold bullion
imports to Indian rose 4% over the last 6 months versus the same period last year, says the
Business Standard, "inflating the country's trade deficit and fuelling worries about the current account deficit" with the rest of the world.
Gold priced in British Pounds meantime neared 11-week highs up at £944 per ounce, gaining 2.0% for the week as Sterling managed only a weak rally following news that the UK has struck a deal with Spain over the post-Brexit treatment of Gibraltor.
"Those issues on which we don't agree," said Spanish foreign minister Josep Borrell, "
will be left for the transition period" of the UK's exit from the European Union, now set to run until as late as 2021.
