GOLD BULLION traded little changed for the week so far in London on Thursday, holding below $1290 per ounce for US investors as the UK Prime Minister finally met with UK opposition politicians to try and find a way forward on Brexit, and new data from Germany showed the worst annual drop in factory orders since the global recession of 2009.
Asian stock markets were mixed and European equities also held flat overall as the Dollar rallied against both the Euro and Sterling.
"Gold pulling back from the highs it made recently is
completely to be expected with the rally in risk assets," says Tom Holl, portfolio manager in natural resources at giant asset-management group Blackrock, speaking to Bloomberg today.
But "investors should focus", he added, on how gold rallied despite US Dollar strength during the sharp drop in global equity markets late in 2018
Despite a call to make leaving with 'no deal' illegal passing by 1 vote in the House of Commons overnight, "
Hard Brexit is increasingly possible because we don't know what the alternative is," said European Commission vice president Jyrki Katainen today.
"Have [lawmakers] accidentally made [a hard Brexit]
more likely?" asks pro-Leave newspaper
The Daily Mail.
"Anxiety in EU circles is growing about Dublin's readiness for a no-deal scenario," adds the
Financial Times, "when
Brussels would require extensive checks on cross-border trade between Ireland and the UK."
London's FTSE100 share index also slipped, losing 0.5% by lunchtime and breaking its post-2016 referendum pattern of rising when Sterling falls, boosting earnings for the index's global corporate constituents.
The Euro also retreated from new highs for the week, slipping from $1.1250 after new Germany data said the Eurozone's largest economy saw factory orders sink by 8.4% in February from the same month last year.
Italy's "populist" coalition government of left and rightwing lawmakers is
pushing to take control of Rome's central-bank gold bullion reserves, the
Wall Street Journal reports, rejecting both Bankitalia and the European Central Bank's
repeated defense of "independence" from politicians and any move to use it for budgetary financing.
"Let's see the final form of this gold repatriation law," says Romania's central bank chief Mugur Isărescu meantime, convening a meeting at the BNR to
defend its "credibility" after Bucharest's Senate backed a move to demand that 95% of the European Union member's gold bullion is stored at home, rather than at the Bank of England in London – heart of the global wholesale market.
Today's cross-party Brexit discussions at 10 Downing Street will include the idea of "confirmatory" referendum, said Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer as he went into the meeting.
Asking the British electorate to confirm what form Brexit takes is
a "perfectly credible" idea, said ruling Conservative Party finance minister Philip Hammond on TV news last night, contrasting it with "some [other] ideas...which are not deliverable, they are not negotiable."
