Shifting global economic leadership back to the US has started to play a role in commodity prices, with base metals and oil leading the way up this week while Australian resource stocks also benefited from a continued slide in the A-dollar.
While it is far too early to declare the US the winner in its trade war with China, the early signs point that way with the US central bank head, Jay Powell, predicting that economic expansion could “continue for quite some time”.
Gold, despite a tick down in the price this week, has surged to the top of the “must-watch” list for investors as the process of increasing US interest rates enters the final stretch and central banks step up their gold buying to trim exposure to the US dollar.
Trade war! What trade war? In a nutshell that’s how investors in the Australian resources sector are treating the latest round of terse exchanges between the US and China
An old metal, gold, and a new metal, vanadium, combined this week to ease the pain caused by global trade uncertainty and plunging asset values in emerging markets.
A 15% fall in the nickel price from $US7 a pound to $US6/lb over the past two months has not endeared the metal to every investor but there is a gathering of the rich and famous in the nickel sector that is becoming hard, and perhaps unwise, to ignore as big bets are placed on its revival.
Political turmoil clouded financial markets this week but through the fog could be seen several emerging trends, one of which was a currency-led gold-price revival and another was a fresh step backwards by the once-booming iron ore sector.
Alexander Downer is best known as a former Australian foreign minister, but his latest claim to fame is an ability to back a winner in a downbeat mining sector thanks to a ride hitched on the remarkable revival of uranium.
