
Gold hits near 3-week low on stronger dollar, Fed symposium in focus
Spot gold was up 0.2 per cent at US$3,321.83 per ounce, as of 0601 GMT, after reaching its lowest level since Aug 1.
US gold futures for December delivery rose 0.2 per cent to US$3,364.30.
A stronger dollar and improving risk appetite from recent geopolitical developments are weighing on gold prices, with markets looking out for Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech in Jackson Hole, OANDA senior market analyst Kelvin Wong said.
The US dollar index climbed to a more than one-week high, making gold less affordable for buyers using other currencies.
Powell is due to speak at the Kansas City Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole symposium on Friday and investors are watching for any clues on monetary policy trajectory.
Minutes of the Fed's July meeting, due later in the day, are anticipated to offer further insights into the central bank's policy stance.
"The macroeconomic backdrop is likely to turn supportive, with Fed resuming its interest rate cuts from September. Higher tariffs will impact economic growth, keeping investment strong for gold," ANZ said in a note.
Gold typically performs well in a low-interest-rate environment and amid heightened uncertainties.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump ruled out deploying ground troops to Ukraine on Tuesday but suggested air support could be part of a deal to end Russia's war in the region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed the White House talks as a "major step forward" towards ending Europe's deadliest conflict in 80 years and setting up a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.
Elsewhere, spot silver fell 0.5 per cent to US$37.20 per ounce, platinum gained 0.6 per cent to US$1,314.25 and palladium was down 0.6 per cent to US$1,108.25.
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The Sun
23 minutes ago
- The Sun
Erdogan tells Putin Turkey supports Ukraine peace talks with all parties
ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan informed Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that Turkey supports a peace process involving all parties for Ukraine during their Wednesday phone conversation. The Turkish presidency stated that Erdogan emphasised Ankara's sincere efforts towards achieving a just peace since the conflict's beginning. 'Turkey has sincerely strived for a just peace since the beginning of the war, and in this context, supports approaches aimed at establishing lasting peace with the participation of all parties,' his office said in a statement. Turkey maintains friendly relations with both Black Sea neighbours and has hosted three rounds of Ukraine-Russia peace talks since May. Ankara consistently advocates for protecting Ukraine's territorial integrity while avoiding Western sanctions against Russia. US President Donald Trump recently held discussions with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and European officials in Washington. This followed Trump's significant meeting with Putin in Alaska just three days earlier. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte contacted Erdogan on Tuesday while returning to Europe after the Washington discussions. The Turkish presidency confirmed they discussed Turkey's role as a key NATO member in the peace process. They also exchanged views on feasible and sustainable security guarantees, according to the statement. Both leaders agreed to maintain close coordination moving forward. – AFP


The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Trump says he will arrange Putin, Zelensky meeting after speaking with both
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was brokering a meeting between Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and their Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to be followed by a trilateral meeting that would include the US leader. The declaration followed back-to-back meetings at the White House, including Trump's in-person meeting with the Ukrainian president, in which he also dangled the possibility of US troops supporting Ukraine. He also met jointly with Zelensky, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other top leaders from across the Atlantic. 'Everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine,' Trump said on social media. 'At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelensky. After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself.' Trump added that the larger group 'discussed Security Guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America'. However, disagreement over the timing of a ceasefire remains to be overcome. Merz, for example, insisted in a social media post that one needs to be in place prior to any further talks. The Kremlin confirmed that Putin and Trump held a phone call on Monday, in which the US leader discussed the day's negotiations with Zelensky and the other leaders. Putin's assistant Yuri Ushakov said in a briefing that 'Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump expressed their support for continuing direct negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in this regard. In particular, they discussed the idea that it would be worthwhile to explore the possibility of raising the level of representatives.' 'It is noteworthy that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump agreed to continue to maintain close contact with each other on Ukrainian and other pressing issues on the international and bilateral agenda,' he said. Sitting with Trump earlier, Zelensky told reporters that he supported the US leader's personal involvement in ending the conflict. 'We support the idea of the United States, and on a personal level, President Trump to stop this war, to make diplomatic way of finishing this war,' he said. 'And we are ready for trilateral. As President said, this is good signal about [a] trilateral. I think this is very good.' Monday's flurry of meetings followed Trump's largely amicable summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, last week, in which the US leader has drawn criticism for backing away from his threat of 'severe consequences' for Moscow if Putin refused to agree to a ceasefire. In the three days since the high-profile visit to America, where Putin received a red carpet reception, Trump had seemed to drift more towards the Russian leader's position, prompting EU leaders to show their determination to back Zelensky by travelling to Washington to meet the US leader together with the Ukrainian president. Trump's latest stance on Russia's war against Ukraine includes a preference for a comprehensive peace deal that would appear to require Kyiv to make concessions – including the forfeiture of some Ukrainian territory, which Zelensky has previously said he is not prepared to give – instead of an immediate ceasefire. Trump said Sunday that Zelensky could end the war 'almost immediately, if he wants to' but that, for Ukraine, there was 'no getting back' Crimea and 'NO GOING INTO NATO'. Seven top European leaders arrived in Washington in an effort to push Trump into offering 'ironclad' US security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of an end to the three-year war. In addition to Von der Leyen and Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finnish President Alexander Stubb are included. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte were also with the Zelensky delegation. In Brussels, the joint effort is seen as an attempt to counterbalance Trump's move towards Putin's position and to avoid a repeat of Zelensky's infamous Oval Office defenestration in February, when he was banished from the White House after clashing with Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance. Trump appeared to endorse plans for Nato to buy weapons – Patriot Missile systems, in particular – that Ukraine needs to repel Russian forces, and hinted at the possibility of US troops being involved. Asked whether he would rule out the latter, Trump said: 'We'll let you know that maybe later today.' 'We're meeting with seven great leaders of great countries also, and we'll be talking about that,' he added. 'They'll all be involved ... when it comes to security there's going to be a lot of help. It's going to be good. They are first line of defence because they're there. They're Europe. But we're going to help them out also. We'll be involved.' In a briefing full of long diversions in which the president blamed former president Joe Biden for the war, Trump also spent much of his time assailing voting machines and mail-in election ballots. Those comments were in line with a social media post he issued shortly before the meeting with Zelensky, in which he teased an executive order ahead of next year's midterm polls targeting both long-time components of US elections. While the trilateral idea went down well with the European leaders supporting Zelensky, with Starmer and Stubb explicitly expressing approval, differences emerged over the need for a ceasefire. 'I can't imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire, so let's work on that, and let's try to put pressure on Russia,' Merz said during opening remarks. Trump said in response: 'In the six wars that I've settled, I haven't had a ceasefire. We just got into negotiations.' Merz repeated his call just a few minutes after Trump announced that he was organising the Zelensky-Putin meeting. Es ist ein gutes Treffen mit Präsident Trump, Präsident Selenskyj und unseren europäischen Partnern heute in Washington, aber die nächsten Schritte werden komplizierter. Wir müssen Druck auf Russland ausüben. Vor weiteren Gesprächen muss es einen Waffenstillstand geben. — Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz (@bundeskanzler) August 18, 2025 Speaking ahead of the joint meeting in the White House on Monday, Macron sought to frame a ceasefire as something that Trump had previously pushed for. 'Your idea to ask for a truce, or at least to stop the killings ... is a necessity, and we all support this idea,' he said. The French president also pushed for a quadrilateral meeting involving EU leadership to follow any trilateral that might emerge, 'because when we speak about security guarantees, we speak about the whole security of the European continent'. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST


The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
NATO chiefs to discuss Ukraine security guarantees amid fresh Russian strikes
BRUSSELS: NATO military chiefs will discuss details of eventual security guarantees for Ukraine during a virtual meeting on Wednesday. This meeting advances the intense global diplomatic efforts to broker an end to Russia's war against its neighbour. Diplomatic efforts continued even as Russian forces claimed fresh territorial advances and Ukrainian officials reported additional civilian casualties from missile strikes. Few details have emerged about the virtual meeting of military chiefs from NATO's 32 member countries scheduled to begin at 2:30 pm local time. A US defence official revealed that top US officer General Dan Caine held talks with European military chiefs on Tuesday evening regarding the 'best options for a potential Ukraine peace deal.' US President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House on Monday following his landmark meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Trump has long criticised the billions of dollars in US support to Ukraine since Russia's 2022 invasion and stated European nations were 'willing to put people on the ground' to secure any settlement. The US president ruled out sending American troops but suggested providing air support instead. While Trump claimed Putin agreed to meet Zelensky and accept some Western security guarantees for Ukraine, both Kyiv and Western capitals have responded cautiously due to numerous vague details in the proposal. Russia's defence ministry announced on Telegram that its troops captured the villages of Sukhetske and Pankivka in the embattled Donetsk region. These villages are located near a section of the front where Russian forces broke through Ukrainian defences last week between the logistics hub of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka. The Kharkiv regional prosecutor's office reported a Russian drone strike on a civilian vehicle killed two people aged 70 and 71. Russian glide bombs struck housing in Kostiantynivka overnight, trapping as many as four people under rubble according to the town's military administration chief. Aerial attacks on Okhtyrka in the Sumy region wounded at least 14 people including three children according to regional authorities. President Zelensky stated these latest strikes demonstrate 'the need to put pressure on Moscow' including through strengthened sanctions. – AFP