Gold is trading higher in mid-European trading today, Monday, August 18, the opening session of the week, recovering its opening losses and testing its lowest levels in two weeks, amid market anticipation of the upcoming meeting between US President Donald Trump, President Zelenskyy, and some European leaders to discuss a peace agreement with Russia. The yellow metal is trading up about 0.41% at $3,348 per ounce, after testing $3,323 at the beginning of today’s Asian session. Silver is trading at $38.10 per ounce, up 0.29%.
In a comment on his Truth Social account before his meeting with the Ukrainian president today, Trump indicated that Zelenskyy could end the war immediately if he so desired, or that the fighting could continue, leaving the burden of ending the war between the two sides on President Zelenskyy. At the end of the week’s trading session on Friday, all eyes will be on northwest Wyoming or the Jackson Hole symposium, where Jerome Powell is expected to deliver his final key Federal Reserve meeting. He will deliver his speech on Friday evening, and markets are monitoring his expectations for the Fed to resume cutting interest rates, which are expected to be cut at the September meeting, as well as once more this year.
In addition to the Jackson Hole symposium, the minutes of the US Federal Reserve’s meeting two weeks ago are expected to be released on Wednesday, where investors will assess the details of the bank’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged.
Platinum, meanwhile, is trading at $1,333, down about 0.14%, while palladium is up about 0.64%, trading at $1,119. Aluminum fell 0.50% to trade at $2,590 per tonne, as figures showed China’s imports of raw aluminum and its products rose 38.2% year-on-year in July to 360,000 metric tons, according to customs data released this morning. Imports by the world’s largest consumer of the metal rose 1.5% year-on-year in the first seven months of the year to 2.33 million tons