February Gold News 2019

The Italian government has clashed with the European Central Bank this week after one of Italy’s largest newspapers, La Stampa, published an article claiming that the coalition government was planning to sell off a large chunk of the country’s gold bullion holdings - potentially up to 600 tonnes of gold.

The spot price for Palladium has set further record prices this week, peaking today at $1,419.37 per ounce - $100 per ounce more expensive than gold and up by $152.37 per ounce since New Year’s Day – a 12% rise in value.

South American mining company Hochschild Mining PLC has announced that it is to shutdown its operations at the Arcata mine in Peru.

The low silver price has forced the company’s hand into putting the Arcata site into a “care and maintenance” mode for the foreseeable future, will full shutdown complete by the end of Q2 2019.

British households are £1,500 worse off since the decision to leave the European Union was announced, according to one leading thinktank.

The Resolution Foundation, an independent UK thinktank which specialises in the standard of living, has today published statistics showing that households are roughly £600 per year worse off as a result of the subsequent economic uncertainty in the past two and a half years.

The Russian government is debating whether or not to scrap VAT on investment gold. Despite Russia’s position as the world’s largest buyer of gold in 2018, and the third largest producer of gold, the country only experiences demand of around 3 tonnes per year from the public, and the 20% VAT rate is believed to be the culprit for such low levels of interest in gold as an investment option.

The Royal Mint has announced a new gold bullion coin for 2019 – the Royal Arms 1oz gold coin. 

The coin, released on Monday, features Timothy Noad's take on the Royal Coat of Arms, as previously used for collectable £1 coins produced by the Mint in 2015.

The Bank of England today admitted there is a 1 in 4 chance of a recession later this year following drastically adjusted growth forecasts for the UK economy. The combined threat of a no-deal Brexit, plus slowing growth in both China and the Eurozone, has forced the BoE to re-estimate the outlook for the UK in the coming months.

Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, has come under fire in recent days after it was revealed that he had sold off part of the nation’s gold reserves to the United Arab Emirates.

The country also sold $900 million worth of unrefined gold (23.6 tonnes approximately) to Turkey in 2018, with US intelligence suspecting re-sale of the refined gold from Turkey to neighbouring Iran.

India’s government are beginning planning work for a national gold spot exchange, which would regulate the price of gold and the gold trade as a whole straight from import.

The Pound has fallen back below $1.31 today following the latest manufacturing figures from IHS Markit. The 0.3% drop against the Dollar was accompanied by a 0.5% drop against the Euro, with Sterling now at €1.1399.

Sterling fell earlier this week following the results of Tuesday's Brexit voting in Parliament, with the Prime Minister voting against her own deal in order to press for fresh negotiations with EU leaders.