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·         Spot gold jumped 1.3% to $1,866.84 per ounce by 1:50 p.m. EDT (1750 GMT), after hitting its highest since Feb. 1 at $1,868.26.

·         U.S. gold futures settled up 1.6% at $1,867.60.

·         Silver rose 2.7% to $28.15, having earlier hit its highest since Feb. 23 at $28.20.

·         “There’s a flight to safety out of the equity markets ... and anticipation that we’re going to continue to see inflation numbers trend much stronger going forward,” said Jeffrey Sica, founder of Circle Squared Alternative Investments.

“The Treasury yields will stay about where they are, and that’s going to further increase the likelihood of investors choosing gold.”

·         Global equity markets paused as inflation pressures tempered demand for riskier assets. Data last week showed U.S. producer prices rose more than expected in April.

·         Benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yields were subdued, reducing the opportunity cost of holding non-interest bearing gold.

·         Investors now await minutes of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s last meeting, due on Wednesday, for more cues on the U.S. central bank’s monetary policy and any comments on inflation.

·         “The Fed is going to continue to hold on to the notion that the increase in inflation has to do more with the reopening of the economies than to do with any real inflation,” Sica said.

·         Gold is seen as a hedge against rising inflation.

·         On a technical note, the gold market has breached the 200-day moving average and that was supporting prices further, said Eli Tesfaye, senior market strategist at RJO Futures.

·         Elsewhere, platinum rose 1.1% to $1,238.41 per ounce.

·         The World Platinum Investment Council said the global platinum market will be more undersupplied this year than it previously thought.

 

Dallas Fed Bank President Robert Kaplan said on Monday that he still thinks it is possible the U.S. central bank could raise interest rates before the end of 2022, reaffirming the projection he made during the March policy-setting meeting.

 

 

Earlier, bitcoin’s price had tumbled below $43,000 after Musk implied in a Twitter exchange Sunday afternoon that the electric vehicle maker sold or may sell the rest of its bitcoin holdings.

 

·       WHO says pandemic is far from over despite high vaccination rates in some countries

 

·       J&J cuts vaccine deliveries to EU by half this week - EU source

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) has cut by half expected deliveries of COVID-19 vaccines to the European Union this week, an EU official told Reuters on Monday, compounding supply problems the company has faced since it began shipping doses to the bloc in April.

 

·       Biden to say U.S. will send 20 million Pfizer, Moderna or J&J vaccine doses abroad by end of June

 

·       Households including most U.S. children to get monthly stimulus payment

A poverty-fighting measure included in the COVID-19 relief bill passed this year will deliver monthly payments to households including 88% of children in the United States, starting in July, Biden administration officials said on Monday.

The Democratic-backed American Rescue Plan, signed into law by President Joe Biden in March as a response to the coronavirus pandemic, expanded a tax credit available to most parents.

Those people will get up to $3,000 per child, or $3,600 for each child under the age of 6, in 2021, subject to income restrictions. The benefit will reach 39 million households, many automatically and by direct deposit every month, starting on July 15.

 

·       U.S. tiptoes through sanctions minefield toward Iran nuclear deal

As the United States searches for a path back to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, it is tiptoeing through a minefield laid by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

The mines are Iran-related sanctions Trump imposed on more than 700 entities and people, according to a Reuters tally of U.S. Treasury actions, after he abandoned the nuclear deal and restored all the sanctions it had removed.

 

·       U.S. Senate votes to open debate on China tech bill

The U.S. Senate voted 86-11 Monday to open debate on a measure authorizing more than $110 billion for basic and advanced technology research over five years in the face of rising competitive pressure from China.

The Endless Frontier Act would authorize most of the money, $100 billion, to invest in basic and advanced research, commercialization of the research, and education and training programs in key technology areas like artificial intelligence (AI).

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate will debate the bill for a week or two beginning on Tuesday.

 

·       U.S.-EU metals talks avert tariff hike on American motorcycles, whiskey

The European Commission, which oversees EU trade policy, said on Monday it would suspend for up to six months a threatened June 1 doubling of retaliatory tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, American whiskey and motorboats, and refrain from slapping tariffs on more U.S. products from lipstick to sports shoes.

 

·       UK sanctions Myanmar Gems Enterprise in bid to cut off junta funding

Britain announced sanctions against state-owned enterprise Myanmar Gems Enterprise (MGE) on Monday, saying the move would deprive the military junta there of a key source of funding.

The United States and Canada also announced further sanctions against Myanmar, which has been in crisis since the military seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government on Feb. 1.

·       Japan economy contracts for first time in 3 quarters

Japan’s economy contracted at an annualised rate of 5.1% in January-March from the previous quarter, government data showed, posting the first decline in three quarters as a resurgence of coronavirus infections dealt a blow to consumer spending.

The gross domestic product (GDP) figure translated into a quarterly drop of 1.3%, slightly bigger than economists’ median estimate of a 1.2% contraction, the Cabinet Office data showed on Tuesday.

·       Israel-Gaza conflict rages on despite U.S., regional diplomacy

 

U.S. deaths from COVID-19 last week fell to their lowest in nearly 14 months and the number of new cases continued to decline for a fifth week in a row, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county data.