Amid carnage on stock markets Monday, the most active gold futures contract on the Comex market touched a high of $1,345 an ounce, up 0.6% compared to Friday's settlement. Volumes were massive with nearly 30m ounces of April delivery gold traded by mid-afternoon as gold pared some of its earlier gains.Gold and the US dollar usually move in opposite directions but on Monday the metal attracted buyi...Read More

Amid carnage on stock markets Monday, the most active gold futures contract on the Comex market touched a high of $1,345 an ounce, up 0.6% compared to Friday's settlement. Volumes were massive with nearly 30m ounces of April delivery gold traded by mid-afternoon as gold pared some of its earlier gains.Gold and the US dollar usually move in opposite directions but on Monday the metal attracted buyi...Read More

MILAN, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) has presented an offer to buy Italian railway group Italo, two sources close to the matter said.One source said the infrastructure fund offered 1.9 billion euros ($2.4 billion) for the whole railway firm, excluding debt. The source added Italo would hold a board meeting on Tuesday to discuss both the bid and a planned listing on the Mil...Read More

The 20 stocks listed in the table below have attracted the highest total options volume during the past 10 days. Stocks highlighted in yellow are new entries to the list, and data is courtesy of Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White. Two names that stand out this time around are GPU giant NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) and automaker Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F). We'll break down som...Read More

(Kitco News) - Gold and silver markets were ending the U.S. day session near unchanged levels intwo-sided trading Monday. A bit of safe-haven demand was featured as worldequity markets are selling off, led by strong down-moves in the U.S. stockindexes. However, a rally in the U.S. dollar index to start the trading weekworked to mitigate buying interest in the precious metals markets. April Comex g...Read More

(Kitco News) - Gold and silver markets were ending the U.S. day session near unchanged levels in two-sided trading Monday. A bit of safe-haven demand was featured as world equity markets are selling off, led by strong down-moves in the U.S. stock indexes. However, a rally in the U.S. dollar index to start the trading week worked to mitigate buying interest in the precious metals markets. April Com...Read More

* S&P 500 down more than 1 pct in afternoon trading* 10-year Treasury yields hit four-year high overnight* Oil prices fall (Updates with afternoon U.S. markets' activity, changes dateline, previous LONDON)By Caroline ValetkevitchNEW YORK, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Stocks on global markets extended their recent selloff on Monday, led by declines in energy shares, while U.S. Treasury yields receded from...Read More

(Repeats to add graphics)By Chuck MikolajczakNEW YORK, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Energy stocks have got off to a strong start this year and look poised to run further, fueled in part by a rebound in oil prices, climbing U.S. production and investors looking to take advantage of shares that could be a bargain after a disappointing 2017.The S&P 500 energy index fell 3.8 percent in 2017, one of only two...Read More

   •  A modest USD uptick negated by sliding US bond yields.    •  Risk-off environment underpinning safe-haven demand. Gold held on to its modest recovery gains through the mid-European session but now seems struggling to gain any strong follow-through traction further beyond $1340 level. Reviving US Dollar demand, supported by Friday's strong US w...Read More

The shares of Dick's Sporting Goods Inc (NYSE:DKS) are suffering today, after Barclays downgraded the stock to "underweight" from "equal weight." The analyst said Dick's "is not positioned to sell the stylish athleisure product that the industry has evolved into," and pointed to accelerating competitive pressure for the bearish note, which included a price-target cut to $25 from $33. However, whil...Read More

STRASBOURG, Feb 5 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank is working to identify any financial stability risk from digital currencies but banks so far seem to be showing little appetite to invest in Bitcoin, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Monday."We are not observing a systematically relevant holding of digital currencies by supervised institutions," Draghi told the European Parliament...Read More

* U.S. bond market stabilizes after 10-year yield hit 4-year peak* U.S. services sector strongest in over 12 years - ISM* ECB's Draghi sees risks from currency market volatility (Updates market action, changes dateline, previous LONDON)By Richard LeongNEW YORK, Feb 5 (Reuters) - The dollar rose against a basket of currencies on Monday as the U.S. bond market selloff levelled off after the 10-year...Read More

Gold projects are no longer the favourite destination of private capital raised for investment in the mining sector as optimism about electric vehicle demand steer funds into battery metals.Private-equity deals in the mining industry bounced back in 2017 according to a new report by UK law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner with investment in the sector jumping by more than 30% to $2.3 billion.43% of fu...Read More

Gold projects are no longer the favourite destination of private capital raised for investment in the mining sector as optimism about electric vehicle demand steer funds into battery metals.Private-equity deals in the mining industry bounced back in 2017 according to a new report by UK law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner with investment in the sector jumping by more than 30% to $2.3 billion.43% of fu...Read More

* ISM services sector index jumps 3.9 points in January* New orders index surges 8.2 points* Services sector employment index vaults 5.3 points By Lucia MutikaniWASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - U.S. services sector activity raced to a near 12-1/2-year high in January, buoyed by robust growth in new orders, the latest sign of strong momentum in the economy at the start of the year.Economic growth is...Read More

* Wells Fargo falls after Fed's unprecedented action* Qualcomm falls on report of Apple dumping co in favor of Intel* Indexes down: Dow 0.90 pct, S&P 0.72 pct, Nasdaq 0.42 pct (Updates to early afternoon)By Tanya AgrawalFeb 5 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were trading lower in early afternoon on Monday as bond yields continued to hover near multi-year highs and losses in energy and financial stocks...Read More

(Kitco News) - Although it seems like the U.S. dollar’sdeclines are slowing down, one analyst says commodity investors should not betoo concerned. The U.S. currency, which tends to tradeinversely with commodities like gold, has been making a bit of a comebacklately -- after seeing its worse year “in history” since 2004 -- holdingsupport as some analysts calling for a bounce in...Read More

(Kitco News) - Although it seems like the U.S. dollar’s declines are slowing down, one analyst says commodity investors should not be too concerned. The U.S. currency, which tends to trade inversely with commodities like gold, has been making a bit of a comeback lately -- after seeing its worse year “in history” since 2004 -- holding support as some analysts calling for a bounc...Read More

Dow component Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) is slated to report earnings after the close tomorrow, Feb. 6. Perhaps due to DIS stock's upbeat earnings reaction last quarter, options traders have been loading up on calls ahead of the event. Below, we'll take a closer look at Disney shares, and see how speculators have been positioning themselves ahead of earnings.On the charts, the security is up n...Read More

While we watched the SuperBowl last night we were also watching the Gold market for signs that the buying we believed was looming in the $1330 area did not chicken out. In previous posts we had gone from saying that $1330 was important technically, on a volatility basis, and because we had good reason to believe that there was buying in that area.WE also handicapped that a move to $140...Read More