Gold and oil futures fell Monday in the wake of the ending – for now – of Donald Trump’s brief tariff attack on Mexico.
Gold ended nine days of gains on Monday while oil continued to fall.
Silver also fell on Comex, but copper rose after China released trade data for May with exports up instead of falling, and imports falling the most in three years.
Global iron ore prices edged higher in the wake of news of a rise in Chinese imports last month.
Comex August gold slumped $US16.80, or 1.3%, to settle at $US1,329.30 an ounce, in New York, halving last week’s 2.7% gain.
That was one of its biggest weekly rise since March last year. Monday’s slide ended a run of nine consecutive session gains—the longest since January 2018, according to FactSet data.
Gold rose Friday in the wake of the weak May jobs report which raised the odds of the Fed cutting rates later this year but Donald Trump’s tariff attack on Mexico ended Friday night as quickly as it had started and G-20 finance ministers talked about easing trade tensions at a meeting at the weekend.
The US dollar rose Monday, closing 0.2% higher against its major rivals. That was after a 1.2% slide last week in the wake of the weak jobs data for May which showed only 75,000 new jobs were created last month and the same number were cut from March and April.
The Aussie dollar fell back under the 70 US cent level it reached late last week to trade around 69.70 in early Asian dealings on Tuesday.
Comex July silver fell 39.2 cents, or 2.6%, to $US14.639 an ounce, after adding 3.2% last week.
July copper rose 1.3% to $US2.662 a pound, more than reversing last week’s loss of half a percent.
The Metal Bulletin iron ore index rose 91 cents to $US101.51 after trade data showed a small rise in iron ore imports last month (see separate story).
Oil prices fell with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for July delivery down 1.4% in New York to settle at $US53.26 a barrel, while August Brent crude fell $US1, or 1.6%, to $US62.29 a barrel in Europe.
WTI rose 0.9% last week and Brent ended up 2.1% after the huge falls of the week before.
Data Friday showing the largest weekly decline in active US oil drilling rigs in six weeks. The Baker Hughes weekly rig use report showed the number of rigs actively drilling for oil in the US 11 to 789 this week. The decline was the biggest weekly since late April.
