Members of Parliament yesterday voted by a margin of 438 to 20 in favour of a December election, due to take place on Thursday December 12th.
With Lords approval expected today, MPs and their parties will now have six weeks to campaign and promote their manifesto, in the hope of breaking the current Parliamentary deadlock.
The price of an ounce of Palladium peaked yesterday at $1,810.50 - a new all-time record.
The scarce metal has high industrial demand but limited supply, and this is a big driving factor in the precious metal's gains in the past six months; up 26.05% or $370.50 per ounce.
America’s stock markets have all made gains so far today following multiple hints from President Trump and the Chinese commerce ministry that ‘Phase One’ of a trade deal is effectively complete.
The S&P 500 is the standout market, up half a percent in trading currently at 3,037 points; just shy of the 3,041 point all-time record it set earlier in the session.
The European Union has agreed to extend the Brexit deadline again; this time to January 31st, 2020. There was little surprise this morning surrounding the announcement, with many expecting such an agreement to be a formality.
The United States Mint has reportedly been given the go-ahead to redesign the reverse depictions on the American Eagle gold and silver bullion coins as part of a bid to tackle counterfeiting.
A breakthrough in Brexit talks last week has helped strengthen the Pound Sterling and the Euro against the US Dollar.
Gold might have calmed down a little of late but still made an 8% gain in August alone, and in USD terms gold is up $216.93 (17.01%) in the past six months of trading.
The Pound Sterling touched the $1.30 mark this morning as investor confidence in a Brexit deal passing in the near future grows, with the German investment bank Berenberg saying there is now a 75% chance of an orderly Brexit.
Despite MPs voting for an amended Withdrawal Agreement on Saturday rather than the exact deal agreed with the EU, many believe the government has the numbers to pass the Withdrawal Agreement at the second try now that the Hard Brexit / no-deal loophole is gone - a red line for many MPs.
The International Monetary Fund has issued a stark warning to central banks across the world that they need to be smarter with their policy decision else risk wasting the ‘limited ammunition’ they possess to stop recession taking hold.
IMF counsellor Gita Gopinath did praise central banks such as the ECB and the Fed for their interest cuts and how that had benefited the growth forecasts by around half a percent, but she stressed that governments needed to avoid reliance on central banks to manoeuvre them out of difficult economic situations.
The price of gold has been bumped down from £1,178.86 per ounce down to £1,159.20 following news from Bloomberg that the UK and EU are closing in on a last-minute Brexit deal.
The gains for Sterling put it above the $1.275 mark for the first time since late June, but the currency is still some way off the exchange rate from when the Brexit referendum result was delivered in 2016 at around $1.48.
The DNB stresses how central bank gold holdings are a ‘beacon of trust’ and that in the very worst scenario, gold can help restart a financial system.
Investment manager Neil Woodford has been removed from running his now-infamous £3.5 billion equity income fund – four months after the fund was first suspended pending liquidity problems.
Despite Woodford’s desire to re-open the fund, administrators Link Fund Solutions has ruled that the fund should now be wound up, and all remaining investments returned to their owners.
New market data from major economic including the United States, Germany, the UK and France has pushed stock market investors into selling off shares, with growth contraction prevalent across countries and specific sectors.
