Gold tacks on as Asian stocks decline

On Tuesday, gold managed to rally in Asia because stocks eased after reports that America is considering slapping fresh levies on EU goods.

On the Comex exchange, gold headed north by up to 0.1% concluding the trading session at $1,303.55 an ounce.

Besides this, the USD index gauging the purchasing power of the greenback versus a group of other currencies didn’t change, showing 96.613 after data revealed that American factory goods orders were mostly in line with forecasts and did little to soothe fears about a deceleration in the American economy.

Today, stocks as well as other risk assets lost momentum right after the US Trade Representative offered levies against the European Union on various wines and cheeses, fresh passenger helicopters, ski-suits as well as certain motorcycles

The move appears to be retaliation for over $11 billion worth of damage from European subsidies to Airbus, a counterpart of Boeing that the WTO told has repeatedly provoked negative effects to America.

Investors are also closely watching development in the conflicts in Libya because more geopolitical flash-points in the Middle East could potentially affect risk assets and also spur demand in the yellow metal.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May is going to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of heading to the European summit the next day to ask for another Brexit delay.

On the China-US trade front, statesmen from the two sides are going to proceed with their talks this week after the last two rounds finished in Washington and Beijing earlier this month.

commodity gold geopolitics