Bloomberg/Netty Idayu Ismail and Filipe Pacheco/8-25-2019
“If the trade war momentarily played second fiddle to Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole address, it has come crashing back to the forefront of concerns as most markets prepare to re-open for business Monday. Renewed tension between the U.S. and China has strategists betting investors will continue to seek the safety of government bonds, gold and the Japanese yen.”
USAGOLD note: We had two important meetings of major players this weekend – the central bankers’ meeting in Jackson Hole and the G-7 meeting in Biarritz – and neither seems to have worked out that well. In fact, little was done that could be construed as anything close to market damage control. To the contrary, an argument could be made that much additional damage has been inflicted and that both the central bankers and political leaders have pretty much left the markets to their own devices. We could get an inkling what Monday holds in store when Asia opens in a few hours. . . . .
“Gold prices in Vietnam jumped 2 percent Saturday after U.S. President Donald Trump slapped another 5 percent tariff on Chinese goods.”
“’I would say this is the probably the most interesting environment for central bankers since the crisis,’ says Raghuram Rajan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, now at the Chicago Booth School of Business.”
“Laboratory tests show that the ultra-thin gold is 10 times more efficient as a catalytic substrate than gold nanoparticles, which are three-dimensional materials with the majority of their atoms residing in the bulk rather than at the surface. The scientists believe the new material could also form the basis for artificial enzymes that could be applied in rapid, point-of-care medical diagnostic tests and water purification systems. They report the 2D gold in a paper in 
“Budget agency chief says debt is on ‘unsustainable course’ and rising faster than expected.”
“In volume terms, the country imports 800-900 tonnes of gold annually. To mitigate the negative impact of gold imports on trade deficit and CAD, the government increased the import duty on gold to 12.5 per cent from 10 per cent in this year’s Budget.”
“The stand-off fuelled rising expectations that the UK will leave the EU on October 31 without an exit deal, souring relations between the two sides and threatening severe economic disruption.”
“China has severely restricted imports of gold since May, bullion industry sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, in a move that could be aimed at curbing outflows of dollars and bolstering its yuan currency as economic growth slows.”
“Gold ETFs have been a shining through a gloomy market as investors poured billions of dollars into this asset category in face of rising uncertainty. According to the World Gold Council, investors funneled $2.6 billion into gold bullion-backed ETFs in July, raising their collective holdings to 2,600 tons, or the highest level since March 2013, the Wall Street Journal reports.”
“‘Some clients are afraid of PLA intervention in Hong Kong, or of another closure of the airport, which will make it difficult to move their gold out of the city, as gold is shipped on commercial flights,’ said J. Rotbart & Co.”
“President Donald Trump raised his demands Monday on the Federal Reserve, calling for the central bank to cut interest rates by a full percentage point and to restart its crisis-era money-printing program.”
“The Trump administration said it would delay imposing a 10 per cent tariff on a series of consumer goods imported from China — including laptops and cell phones — until December, in a bid to ease fears about the trade war’s impact on markets and the economy.”
“Speculation has been building among strategists that U.S. may intervene to forcibly weaken the dollar. The risk of U.S. action rose further in the eyes of some analysts this week after the yuan plunged to a decade-low and the Trump administration formally named China a currency manipulator.”
“Commodity purchases by China rebounded strongly in July. Imports of soy to coal and crude oil gained, signaling demand in the world’s biggest buyer remains solid even as a trade spat with the U.S. escalates.”
“However, a 2018 study of Norway has punctured these theories by showing that IQs are dropping not just across societies but within families. In other words, the issue is not that educated Norwegians are increasingly outnumbered by lower-IQ immigrants or the children of less-educated citizens. Even children born to high-IQ parents are slipping down the IQ ladder.”
“’There’s been a strong incentive to change, not just for Russia but for its trading partners too,’ said Dmitry Dolgin, an economist at ING Bank in Moscow. ‘The European Union is also now facing trade pressure from the U.S.’ pushing them to try to reduce dependence on the dollar,’ he said.”
“Germany’s yield curve is now at its flattest since the financial crisis — and yields across the world are slumping to fresh lows — in a cacophony of signs that investors are growing increasingly pessimistic about the outlook for the world economy.”
