Investing.com - Gold prices marked new six-year highs as intensifying trade tensions between the U.S. and China boosted safe-haven demand for the precious metal.
Spot gold gained $24.57, or 1.7%, to $1,465.56 by 10:04 AM ET (14:04 GMT). That was close to the intraday high of $1,466.33, its most expensive level since May 9, 2013.
Risk aversion hit other markets, with money tumbling out of stocks and into bonds, as well as gold. The S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq Composite all sank more than 2%.
The yield on the benchmarket 10-Year Treausry plunged about 5.5% to 1.753%, further pressued by an unexpected drop in the Insutitue for Supply Management's services PMI this morning. Non-yielding gold becomes more attractive to investors as bond yields fall.
Beijing showed little willingness to back down in the ongoing trade conflict with Washington. China allowed the yuan to fall to its weakest level in a decade against the dollar and was also said to have requested that its state-owned companies halt imports of U.S. agricultural products.
The decisions come after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged last Thursday to implement 10% tariffs on another $300 billion in Chinese goods from Sept. 1 if trade negotiations do not make progress.
Trump did not wait long in issuing a response to Beijing’s moves on Monday, tweeting that that it was clearly “currency manipulation”.
At the same time he used the excuse to renew attacks on the Federal Reserve, which he has blamed for not easing policy at a fast enough rate when compared to counterparts. “Are you listening Federal Reserve?” he asked.
Markets reacted to recent events, pushing odds for a 50-basis-point interest rate cut in September above 20% compared to just around 2% at the end of last week. Fed funds futures had already priced in a quarter-point cut.
Viraj Patel, global macro strategist at Arkera, said that the U.S. would actually lose in the event of an all-out currency war as Beijing is “far more advanced in playing the currency game and has bigger firepower”.
But Patel indicated that safe havens such as gold or the Japanese yen woyuld be the big winners in any active global FX war.
In other metals trading, silver futures gained 1.4% to $16.497 a troy ounce by 10:07 AM ET (14:07 GMT).
Palladium futures rose 0.8% to $1,415.75 an ounce, while sister metal platinum traded up 0.5% to $857.40.
In base metals, copper fell 1.2% to $2.542 a pound.