Gold Prices Edge Higher Amid Brexit Turmoil
BENGALURU, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Gold prices rose on Friday as investors sought safe haven assets amid fears of a chaotic departure for Britain from the European Union.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold was up 0.2 percent at $1,214.77 per ounce at 0121 GMT, while U.S. gold futures rose 0.1 percent to $1,215.6 per ounce.
* Palladium was 0.6 percent lower at $1,149.49 per ounce, having hit a record high of $1,178.30 per ounce in the previous session.
* The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, inched up about 0.1 percent.
* Prime Minister Theresa May vowed to fight for her draft divorce deal with the EU on Thursday after the resignation of her Brexit secretary and other ministers put her strategy and her job in peril.
* A “really strong” U.S. economy is likely to continue growing, but softness in housing and high levels of corporate debt have caught the Federal Reserve’s eye, Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday.
* U.S. retail sales rebounded sharply in October as purchases of motor vehicles and building materials surged, but data for the prior two months was revised lower and the underlying trend suggested that consumer spending was probably slowing down.
* The U.S. economy is expanding at a 2.8 percent annualized rate in the fourth quarter, based on domestic retail sales data in October, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast model showed on Thursday.
* China’s written response to U.S. demands for trade reforms is unlikely to trigger a breakthrough at talks between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping later this month, a senior Trump administration official told Reuters on Thursday.
* Italy’s government is looking to avoid European sanctions over its 2019 budget, Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said on Thursday while stressing he did not want Italians to have to foot the bill.
* The United States imposed economic sanctions on 17 Saudi officials on Thursday for their role in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor sought the death penalty for five suspects in the murder.
* India’s October gold imports down 42.9 percent year-over-year.
DATA AHEAD (GMT)
0700 Germany Wholesale price index Oct
0900 Italy Industrial orders Sep
0830 European Central Bank President Draghi speaks
1415 U.S. Industrial production Oct
(Reporting by Eileen Soreng in Bengaluru; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)
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