Gold hovers near one-week low as firmer US dollar, yields weigh
Spot gold held its ground at $3,301.50 per ounce as of 0234 GMT. U.S. gold futures fell 0.2% to $3,310.10.
Trump said he would impose a 50% tariff on imported copper and introduce long-threatened levies on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.
Trump reiterated his threat of 10% tariffs on BRICS nations on Tuesday, a day after notifying 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of tariff increases set to take effect on August 1.
The U.S. dollar index steadied after nearing a two-week high late on Tuesday, while the yield on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes hovered near a three-week high.
"Gold prices are holding up impressively well this month against a backdrop of rising yields and a strengthening U.S. dollar ... its ability to resist the pressure suggests underlying strength and a bullish bias," said Ilya Spivak, head of global macro at Tastylive.
Higher yield increases the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion, while a weaker dollar makes gold more affordable for holders of other currencies.
Investors will closely examine the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest meeting minutes, due later in the day, for hints of potential interest rate cuts amid the central bank's wait-and-see approach.
"It's a light week for economic data, but how prices react to minutes from June's FOMC meeting may help establish where we are in Fed vs. markets policy debate," Spivak said.
Meanwhile, Americans' inflation outlook remained stable, with the New York Fed's latest survey showing one-year inflation estimates at 3%, down from 3.2% in May, while the three- and five-year expectations stayed at 3% and 2.6%, respectively.
Spot silver fell 0.5% at $36.58 per ounce, platinum was down 0.8% at $1,348.78 and palladium lost 0.4% to $1,106.29.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Tahawul Tech
an hour ago
- Tahawul Tech
'Agentic AI is on every organisation's roadmap, but most companies are stuck in prototype purgatory.' – Shaun Clowes, Confluent
Confluent, Inc. has announced Streaming Agents, a new capability in Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink® that makes it easy to build and scale AI agents that monitor, reason, and act on real-time data. Streaming Agents removes barriers to enterprise-grade agentic artificial intelligence (AI) by unifying data processing and AI workflows and providing easy, secure connections to every part of a business, including large language models (LLMs) and embedding models, tools, and other systems. It accelerates the adoption of agentic AI, enabling more efficient workflows, faster time to value, and the creation of entirely new business models and opportunities. 'Agentic AI is on every organization's roadmap. But most companies are stuck in prototype purgatory, falling behind as others race toward measurable outcomes,' said Shaun Clowes, Chief Product Officer at Confluent. 'Even your smartest AI agents are flying blind if they don't have fresh business context. Streaming Agents simplifies the messy work of integrating the tools and data that create real intelligence, giving organizations a solid foundation to deploy AI agents that drive meaningful change across the business.' IDC research shows that while organizations ran an average of 23 generative AI proofs of concept between 2023 and 2024, only three reached production. Of those, just 62% met expectations. 'While most enterprises are investing in agentic AI, their data architectures can't support the autonomous decision-making capabilities these systems require,' said Stewart Bond, Vice President of Data Intelligence and Integration Software at IDC. 'Organizations should prioritize agentic AI solutions that offer easy, secure integration and leverage real-time data for the essential context needed for intelligent action.' Build and Scale Real Time AI Agents With Streaming Agents Streaming Agents brings agentic AI directly into stream processing pipelines to help teams build, deploy, and orchestrate event-driven agents with Apache Kafka® and Apache Flink®. By unifying data processing and AI reasoning, agents gain access to fresh contextual data from real-time sources to quickly adapt and communicate with other agents and systems as conditions change. Streaming Agents are always on and works on a business's behalf, operating dynamically, processing high-volume data streams, and instantly responding to real-time signals with context-aware reasoning like human operators would. For example, Streaming Agents can do competitive pricing by continuously monitoring prices across ecommerce sites and automatically updating product prices on a retailer's site to reflect the most competitive offer for customers. Key features of Streaming Agents include: Tool calling for context-aware automation: Tool invocation via Model Context Protocol (MCP) enables agents to select the right external tool, such as a database, software-as-a-service (SaaS), or API, to take meaningful action. Tool calling accounts for what's happening in the business and what other systems and agents are doing. Tool invocation via Model Context Protocol (MCP) enables agents to select the right external tool, such as a database, software-as-a-service (SaaS), or API, to take meaningful action. Tool calling accounts for what's happening in the business and what other systems and agents are doing. Connections for secure integrations: Securely connect to models, vector databases, and MCP directly using Flink. Connections also protect sensitive credentials, encourage more reusability by sharing connections across multiple tables, models, and functions, and centralize management for large-scale deployments. Securely connect to models, vector databases, and MCP directly using Flink. Connections also protect sensitive credentials, encourage more reusability by sharing connections across multiple tables, models, and functions, and centralize management for large-scale deployments. External Tables and Search to boost AI accuracy: Ensure that streaming data is enriched with non-Kafka data sources, such as relational databases and REST APIs, to provide the most current and complete view of data. This improves the accuracy of AI decision-making, vector search, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications, reduces cost and complexity by using Flink SQL, and leverages the security and networking capabilities of Confluent Cloud. Ensure that streaming data is enriched with non-Kafka data sources, such as relational databases and REST APIs, to provide the most current and complete view of data. This improves the accuracy of AI decision-making, vector search, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications, reduces cost and complexity by using Flink SQL, and leverages the security and networking capabilities of Confluent Cloud. Replayability for iteration and safety: Agents can be developed and evaluated using real data without live side effects, enabling dark launches, A/B testing, and faster iteration. Streaming Agents are available today in open preview.
Zawya
2 hours ago
- Zawya
Wall St futures subdued with retail earnings, Fed meet in focus
U.S. stock index futures dipped on Wednesday, following a tech-led selloff on Wall Street, as investors parsed earnings from retailers Target and Lowe's for clues on consumer spending ahead of a key Federal Reserve symposium later this week. Earnings from major retailers, seen as a barometer for the health of the American consumer, are in the spotlight this week, at a time when sentiment has taken a hit from concerns that tariffs could drive prices higher in the coming months. Target plunged 10% in premarket trading after the company named a new CEO and retained its annual forecasts that were lowered in May due to weak demand for the largely discretionary merchandise it sells. Estee Lauder fell 7.6% after the cosmetics giant forecast annual profit below estimates due to tariff-related headwinds, while Lowe's gained 2.7% after the home improvement retailer raised its annual sales forecast and announced plans to buy Foundation Building Materials for nearly $8.8 billion. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq marked their worst session in more than two weeks on Tuesday as investors started to take stock of elevated valuations in the tech sector, whose gains had driven most of the market recovery from the April selloff. Deepening concerns of government interference with companies, sources said the Trump administration was looking into taking equity stakes in chip companies in exchange for grants under the CHIPS Act - just weeks after signing unprecedented revenue-sharing deals with Nvidia and AMD. Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel were marginally lower in premarket trading. Nvidia is expected to report quarterly results on Aug. 27. "For now, this looks like a mild and possibly necessary correction after an extremely strong run for this space," said AJ Bell's head of financial analysis, Danni Hewson. "Nvidia's quarterly earning next week now look even more crucial than they already were." At 07:22 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 47 points, or 0.10%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 6.75 points, or 0.10%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 37.5 points, or 0.16%. Minutes from the Fed's July meeting, where interest rates were left unchanged, are expected at 2:00 p.m. ET. It could set the tone before the central bank's highly anticipated conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, between August 21 and 23. Chair Jerome Powell is expected to speak on Friday and his remarks will be scrutinized for any clues on monetary policy, even as investors price in a 25-basis-point interest rate cut in September, according to data compiled by LSEG. Traders "remain wary that Powell could strike a more hawkish tone, emphasizing tariff-driven inflation risks and pushing back against the degree of easing expected by the market," said Bas Kooijman, CEO of DHF Capital S.A. Remarks from Governor Christopher Waller and Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic are expected later in the day. Recent economic data has suggested that the economy is yet to feel the full impact of tariffs and strategists expect the lingering uncertainty to temper market optimism, leaving the benchmark S&P 500 to potentially end the year just below current near-record levels. On the trade front, the Commerce Department slapped 50% import levies on more than 400 "derivative" steel and aluminum products. (Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Sanchayaita Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
Zawya
2 hours ago
- Zawya
US tariffs on Chinese graphite spark opportunity for India's Epsilon
NEW DELHI - India's Epsilon Advanced Materials is moving swiftly to close deals to supply critical components to Japanese and South Korean battery makers in the U.S., a top executive said, after Washington imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese imports. The U.S. in July imposed a punitive 93.5% tariff on import of graphite anode materials from China, creating an opportunity for India's Epsilon to break Beijing's monopoly on supplies of the key battery component. Indeed, U.S.-based battery makers are eager to secure alternative suppliers as the higher levies disrupt supply chains and stoke uncertainty, including over future price rises. Vikram Handa, managing director of Epsilon, which makes graphite anode materials for EV batteries, expressed confidence over some new supply deals. "Last month, they were saying let's wait and see how things go. Now we think in the next 60 to 80 days, we will close our contracts," said Handa. Epsilon, which announced plans for a $650 million factory in North Caroline in October 2023, has been working on getting permits and environmental clearances, while waiting for firm orders before putting a shovel in the ground. "The numbers now start making sense for customers to buy from the U.S.," said Handa, adding that the plant, which will have capacity of 30,000 tonnes of anode materials, is expected to be up and running by mid-2027. An EV battery is made up of four components - anode, cathode, electrolyser and separator. The anode contributes to fast-charging and vehicle range. The U.S. needs 500,000 tonnes of anode materials a year for its EV and energy storage battery needs, which were met largely by China, which refines over 90% of the world's graphite into the material used in almost all EV battery anodes. Mumbai-based Epsilon also has plans to invest over $1.1 billion in a 100,000-tonne anode materials facility in India's Karnataka state, but has yet to see serious interest in India. Handa said low Chinese prices were a draw for Indian companies, but he was trying to persuade them to buy at least 20% from Epsilon, so that "if China closes the tap," they had an alternative supplier. "If it is zero (demand for Epsilon's anodes) right now, how will I put up a plant?" he asked. "I hope this rare earth story doesn't play out the same way for battery materials," given Indian companies dependence on them, he said.
