Gold News

A Sovereign coin depicting Edward VIII, uncle of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, has been sold to a private buyer in the UK for a record £1 million for a coin.

The 22-carat coin was discovered by the Royal Mint’s verification team, who found it to be owned by an American collector who was looking to sell the coin on.

In 2019 it felt like silver was the forgotten metal. The reality though, is that silver is not a bad investment - far from it. Statistically, silver actually gained 16.83% in value for 2019; rising from $15.44 to $18.04 per ounce.

This is hardly a failure to attract demand and puts it ahead of gold in terms of price growth, meaning that in what was a stellar year for it, gold was actually the worst performing of the big four precious metals.

The Pound is at a two-week low and is once again under pressure, following the release of poor retail and GDP figures for the final months of 2019.

Figures for GDP showed the UK economy contracted by 0.3% in November, putting the end of 2019 overall at near-stagnation of 0.1%.

2019 was a very strong year for both gold demand and the gold price. Domestic events drove currency shifts and subsequent asset value changes just as much as international matters. For the UK, Brexit fears drove the Pound down and the general election pushed it back up - both impacting the gold price.

In 2020, the US will have a presidential election, with President Trump contesting this while trying to contain Iran, North Korea, manage the trade war against China, and keep America above the pack as the global economic slowdown gains momentum. Will gold continue its bull run, or can Trump live up to his own hype and resolve all disputes?

Gold was amongst a raft of assets and markets to be impacted overnight as Iran took action against the United States by launching a missile barrage across the border into neighbouring Iraq, targeting a US airbase associated with the killing of Major-General Qasem Soleimani.

The price of gold reached a near seven-year high in US Dollars of $1,586.97 per ounce today, with tensions growing between the United States and Iran following last week's assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani - Iran's highest ranked official behind Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani.

Gold has risen by over 4% in the past week against the US Dollar, the Euro, and the Pound Sterling, and with no sign of tensions subsiding, experts believe that safe havens like gold will continue to gain value.

The gold price has surged overnight following news that a US air strike has killed top Iranian general – Qasem Soleimani – in a move that has significantly heightened tensions in the Middle East.

Investors have flocked to safe havens gold and silver as fears of new military conflict grow, pushing the gold price up by 2.9% in 24 hours in Sterling.

It’s been a tough start to 2020 for Sterling, with the UK currency shedding 0.6% as traders return to London today and kick off a new calendar year.

This has resulted in a new-year boost of 1.52% in Sterling versus a more modest rise of 0.68% in Dollars for the same 24 hour period.

Ecuador’s central bank, Banco Central del Ecuador, has announced that it has recently added to the nation’s gold reserves as part of the state’s holdings, taking its total holdings up to $1 billion.

The process has been going on since 2016 and will run until 2026 as part of state loan repayments to the central bank from the Ministry of Finance, with the bank pushing to diversify its holdings to better protect Ecuador against financial crisis.

Just four days after rallying on the back of the general election, the pound has rebounded today, wiping off almost all the gains it had made. News broke last night that the government are bringing in an amendment which will outlaw any further delays to Brexit, weakening the pound, and pushing the gold price up.

Pound Sterling rallied last night as the Conservatives secured their election victory, and decimated opposition parties in the general election.The gold price dropped to a near six-month low of £1,085 per ounce last night as a result of the strengthening pound.

Will Boris Johnson now be able to 'Get Brexit Done'? Or is a no-deal Brexit risk growing once more?

Election day is here, and with it the Pound Sterling hit an eight-month high of $1.3228 against the US Dollar this morning as the latest polling points to a narrow Conservative majority. Polling is unpredictable however, and the Pound has since fallen back slightly to $1.316, while being at €1.182 against the Euro.

The former US Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volcker, has died at the age of 92. Volcker is infamous for advocating the abandonment of the gold standard, as well as his introduction of extreme fiscal policies in an attempt to turn around America’s spiralling inflation of the 1970s.

Pound Sterling has climbed to a seven-month high against the US Dollar this week, as markets become more confident of a Conservative victory in the upcoming General Election. The Pound is now at its highest since May 2019, hitting a high of $1.314 this morning – a gain of 2.29% in just a week.

One of Britain’s largest funds has been forced to suspend dealing due to problems with liquidity, risking billions of investor funds and potentially similar losses to the Woodford Fund failure from earlier this year.

Figures from the BEGOS rankings of commodities show that, for 2019, gold has been the third-best performing asset – behind the S&P 500 stock market and oil.

Last year – specifically in Dollar terms – the price of gold actually declined year-on-year; down 1.7% versus 2017. This year, gold has gained over 14.5% in Dollars, rising to record-breaking prices in other currencies.

Only a year since the record-breaking Douglas nugget was revealed to have been found in a Scottish river, another prospector has found an even larger specimen hidden on a riverbed, making this one Britain's largest ever gold nugget discovered.

New figures published today by the Institute for Supply Management report that the manufacturing index for November has fallen to 48.1 points; down from 48.3 in October and a fourth consecutive month of sector contraction.

Contradictory data – this time from IHS Markit - showed a rise in the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) from 51.3 points to 52.6.

The National Bank of Serbia (Народна банка Србије in the native Serbian) has joined a growing list of central banks to add a sizeable sum of gold to the nation’s reserves.

Official figures show that Serbia added nine tonnes of gold to the central bank holdings in October. The transaction was worth approximately $438 million (€397.9 million), with the gold price at $1,503 per ounce.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has published its analysis of the Conservative and Labour manifestos with two weeks until the general election. Their verdict? “nothing new in the Conservatives’ manifesto” and Labour “want to change everything.”