Commodity Blog

Gold futures are trading lower as investors digest some of the latest developments happening in the news. The biggest development to kick off the trading week is the breaking story that President Donald Trump and House Democrats have reached a tentative deal on the USMCA trade agreement. Conflicting trade reports also impacted the yellow metal’s direction on Monday.

January gold futures rose $0.30, or 0.02%, to $1,465.40 per ounce at 18:20 GMT on Monday on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Year-to-date, the yellow metal, which was relatively flat last week, is up more than 14%.

Silver, the sister commodity to gold, is trading higher to start the trading week. February silver futures tacked on $0.045, or 0.28%, to $16.55 an ounce. The white metal suffered a 2% weekly loss last week, lowering its gains to 7% on the year.

Gold has been seeing between positive and negative territory throughout the Monday trading session, unable to generate clear momentum. The yellow metal might still be reeling from last week’s impressive November jobs report that found 266,000 new jobs were created and the unemployment rate tumbled to 3.5%.

It was reported that President Trump and the House Democrats reached a tentative deal on the newest version of the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). While reports are short on details, sources close to the situation say that if the White House sends ratifying legislation to the Congress by December 15 that legislators could cast a vote by December 18.

Should the USMCA get passed, it would be a win-win for both parties. President Trump and the Republicans would finally ratify an important part of their campaign platform. The Democrats could prove that they can legislate and move forward with the impeachment process – it should be noted that Democrats have also been holding out because they want the Mexican government to impose stricter labor standards across the private and public sectors.

Meanwhile, a deputy commerce minister said that China really wants to reach a trade agreement with the US ahead of this weekend’s deadline of tariffs. But global financial markets are not viewing US-China trade relations as upbeat.

In other metal markets, January copper futures tacked on $0.035, or 1.23%, to $2.76 a pound. January platinum futures slipped $1.90, or 0.21%, to $897.00 per ounce. February palladium futures surged $9.20, or 0.5%, to $1,855.30 an ounce.

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