(Kitco News) - Gold prices were continuing to trade lower on the day after U.S. consumers bought less pre-existing homes in May, according to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Existing home sales edged down 0.4% last month to a seasonally adjusted and annualized rate of 5.43 million units, compared to April’s annualized rate of 5.45 million homes, the associa...Read More

(Reuters) - The U.S. jobs market does not appear overly tight and the Federal Reserve should continue with a gradual pace of interest rate rises amid a strong economy to balance its employment and inflation goals, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday.Powell also cautioned central banks against trying to run an excessively hot labor market for too long in case it undermines their credibilit...Read More

WBA will replace GE in the DJI ahead of next Tuesday's openFollowing recent headlines that Twitter (TWTR) joined the S&P 500 Index (SPX), news hit last night that Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) will replace General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) ahead of the open next Tuesday, June 26 -- ending the latter's 110-year run as a member of the 30-stock i...Read More

(Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Amazon.com Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co on Wednesday named Atul Gawande as the chief executive officer of their health venture.The new company would be based in Boston and operate independently, the companies said in a joint statement.Gawande practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and is a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan S...Read More

BERLIN (Reuters) - The leaders of Germany and France agreed on Tuesday to create a budget for the euro zone and hailed a “new chapter” for the currency union, but they left the details to be worked out later with other members of the 19-country bloc.Their meeting, to prepare for an EU summit on June 28-29, had been dubbed a “moment of truth” for bilateral relations by Franc...Read More

Most of Wall Street is still bullish on INTC sharesBlue chip Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is trading higher today, rising 0.4% to $53.16 so far, even though it's again being hit with negative analyst attention. For starters, Cowen just trimmed its price target to $54 from $55. But the more noteworthy attention likely came from Morgan Stanley, which believes chip rival Advanced Micro Devices (A...Read More

(Reuters) - Walt Disney Co sweetened its bid for Twenty-First Century Fox Inc assets to $71.3 billion on Wednesday, topping Comcast Corp’s $65 billion offer last week.The new offer of $38 a share, which would be split 50-50 in cash and stock, is $10 higher than Disney’s first bid in December 2017. Comcast’s last bid was for $35 a share in cash.Disney’s latest offer is &ldqu...Read More

The loss of a key partner has dealt a huge blow to Northern Dynasty Minerals' dreams of bringing the Pebble mine to life.Read full newsRead More

Disney sweetened its buyout bid for Fox assetsFutures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) are pointed higher for the first time this week, as trade tensions between the U.S. and China take a back seat to equity moves. This morning, Disney (DIS) upped its bid for Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA) assets to $71.3 billion in cash and stock, topping Comcast's $65 billion all-cash offer. Fox shares...Read More

It's the end of an era for the blue-chip indexSpeculation about how much longer General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) could remain part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) has been swirling for months, and now it's official: GE will soon be replaced by pharmacy concern Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA). GE has been a Dow component on and off since the blue-chip index's conception in the lat...Read More

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May faces a showdown with rebels in her Conservative Party on Wednesday after refusing to accept demands for parliament to have a “meaningful vote” on Brexit that could stop Britain crashing out of the European Union with no deal.She will ask the House of Commons to pass her Brexit blueprint, or EU Withdrawal Bill, which will prepare Britain fo...Read More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told Republican lawmakers on Tuesday he would back either of the immigration bills making their way through the House of Representatives, as the outcry grew over his administration’s separation of immigrant parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border.Representative Mark Meadows said Trump told Republican members of the House at a meeting...Read More

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices steadied on Wednesday, supported by a drop in U.S. commercial crude inventories and the loss of storage capacity in Libya, but under pressure ahead of a meeting of OPEC exporters which may increase global production.Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 was unchanged at $75.08 a barrel by 1037 GMT. U.S. light crude CLc1 was 5 cents higher at $65.12.U.S. crude inventories fell b...Read More

BEIJING (Reuters) - China expressed regret on Wednesday over a U.S. decision to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council, with state media saying the image of the United States as a defender of rights was “on the verge of collapse”.U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced the decision to pull out of the council on Tuesday over what she said was chronic bias agains...Read More

One of the strangest stories in the mining industry this year has been the battle between Russian gold miner Petropavlovsk Plc and its activist, mystery shareholders.Read full newsRead More

   •  Persistent USD buying interest keeps exerting downward pressure.   •  Improving risk appetite/pickup in the US bond yields add to the selling bias. Gold struggled to register any meaningful recovery and remained within striking distance of YTD lows, set in the previous session. With escalating US-China trade tensions doing little to stall overnight sha...Read More

(Kitco News) - Silver will eventually outperform gold but headwinds remain for now, said theconsultancy Metals Focus.Wheneversilver gains the upper hand, the gold/silver ratio would decline. This measureshow many ounces of silver it takes to buy an ounce of gold.Analystspointed out that last week, the gold/silver ratio fell to 75, the lowest sincelate November, after having been as high as 82 in e...Read More

(Kitco News) - Silver will eventually outperform gold but headwinds remain for now, said the consultancy Metals Focus.Whenever silver gains the upper hand, the gold/silver ratio would decline. This measures how many ounces of silver it takes to buy an ounce of gold.Analysts pointed out that last week, the gold/silver ratio fell to 75, the lowest since late November, after having been as high as 82...Read More

(Kitco News) - Gold pricesare moderately lower and hit another six-month low in early U.S. tradingWednesday. The yellow metal can’t hold a bid despite some risk aversion seen inthe marketplace this week, due to worries about a global trade war. It seemsthe specter of less commerce in raw commodities if a trade war would break outis trumping safe-haven buying. Indeed, gold at present is actin...Read More

VIENNA (Reuters) - The risks for financial stability in Europe are currently more political than economic, veteran European Central Bank policymaker Ewald Nowotny said on Wednesday.Nowotny, who heads Austria's central bank and is a member of the ECB's governing council, also told a news conference the euro's EUR= recent weakening against the U.S. dollar was largely driven by diverging interest r...Read More