Closing summary
The oil price has turned positive after falling earlier, while spot gold is still down 1.2%.
The White House intends to issue an executive order “clarifying misinformation” about tariffs on gold bars and other specialty productions.
Gold futures hit a record high on Friday on news of US import tariffs on one-kilo bars of gold, according to a ruling on the US customs and border protection service’s website. The ruling referred to cast gold bars form Switzerland, the world’s biggest bullion refining and transit hub, which is now subject to Trump’s import tariffs of 39%.
Bitcoin and ethereum have risen, targeting all-time highs.
China said it hopes the United States will strive for “positive” trade outcomes, a day before a trade truce reached between the two countries last month is due to expire.
Wall Street has opened flat with chipmakers slipping after a deal to share some of their China revenues with the US government.
Britain’s biggest chemical plant is under threat, its owner Ineos has warned, as soaring energy costs have left it battling for survival.
The Olefins and Polymers plant at Grangemouth, in Scotland, which makes products used by hundreds of UK plastic companies, is at risk of closure unless there is a major turnaround in the next two years, Ineos said.
The Gravelines nuclear power plant in northern France has been shut down after a swarm of jellyfish entered the filter drums that pull in cooling water, according to its state-owned operator, EDF.
The plant in northern France is one of the largest in the country and cooled from a canal connected to the North Sea.
Four reactors were affected by the incident, which occurred late on Sunday and led to the entire plant being shut down. Reactors 2, 3 and 4 stopped automatically when the filter drums of the pumping stations became packed with a “massive and unpredictable” swarm of jellyfish, and reactor 6 went offline shortly after, EDF said.
Fabergé, the jeweller famed for its imperial Russian Easter eggs, has been sold to a technology investor in a $50m (£37m) deal.
Gemfields, which mines coloured gemstones in Africa, has agreed to sell Fabergé to SMG Capital, a US investment company controlled by the Russian tech backer Sergei Mosunov, who is based in the UK.
The struggling miner, which bought Fabergé in 2013 for $142m from the private equity company Pallinghurst, put the company up for sale in December, when political unrest in Mozambique prompted it to temporarily freeze operations at its ruby mine.
Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Bye! – JK
China says hopes US will strive for ’positive’ trade outcomes
China said it hopes the United States will strive for “positive” trade outcomes, a day before a trade truce reached between the two countries last month is due to expire.
We hope that the US will work with China to follow the important consensus reached during the phone call between the two heads of state... and strive for positive outcomes on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit,
foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said in a statement.
