12th August 2017

We saw some signs of moderation in the various markets on Friday after a rather stressful week. Gold and silver both ended with modest gains and closed near their highs, but platinum and palladium did not do as well, although for the week as a whole, they still ended with strong showings. Meanwhile, there was no let-up in the fierce war of words with North Korea, but most of the dialogue was coming from President Trump, who again warned Pyongyang about not testing the US’s resolve and said that the US military was “locked and loaded” to take the North Koreans on. Surprisingly, we did not hear much back from the North Korea itself, perhaps because of two reasons: the first being that the Chinese said they would be neutral in the event of a North Korean launch, tacitly signalling that they would not come to their ally’s defense and second, possibly on reports of back-channel negotiations that are apparently underway between the US and North Korea, something that was not widely advertised until the AP reported on it on Friday.