Chinese demand pushes gold to record highs: China extended its lead over India as the world’s biggest buyer of gold bars, coins, and jewelry. Chinese demand for gold and bar coin investments surged 27% over the past year and demand for gold jewelry rose 10% in the same period. Demand from China pushed the precious metal to a record-breaking USD 2.4k an ounce this year, Bloomberg reports.

The view from the trading floor: Gold (Comex) is up around 20% YTD and was trading at just over USD 2.4k last night in after hours trading.

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ALSO worth knowing about on this fine spring morning:

  • BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has stepped up security for CEO Larry Fink (a frequent visitor to Saudi) amid an “anti-woke backlash.” (Financial Times)
  • The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is under fire from “City bosses who fear it will drive businesses out of UK” if it goes ahead with a plan to name-and-shame companies under investigation. (Financial Times)
  • Tesla is again under the microscope, this time in a Bloomberg story that writes “The stock is sliding, a cheaper electric car is deprioritized and the CEO is riling the workforce with his biggest layoffs yet.”

THE MARKETS THIS MORNING-

Asian markets are rebounding from Friday’s sell-off, with the Hong Kong’s Hang Seng leading the gainers, up nearly 2.3% in early trading. That’s raising hope that positive sentiment (or perhaps a bit of wishful thinking?) could see the Nasdaq (down 5.5% last week) and S&P (down >3% last week) snap their six-day losing streaks.

In context: The two big US benchmarks were dragged down last week by a tech selloff.

What to watch for this week: 1Q 2024 results announcements from Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft.

Right now: US and European equities futures were up slightly in overnight trading.

TASI

12,518

+0.1% (YTD: +4.6%)

MSCI Tadawul 30

1,571

-0.3% (YTD: +1.2%)

NomuC

26,940

+0.9% (YTD: +9.8%)

USD : SAR (SAMA)

3.75 Sell

3.75 Buy

Interest rates

6% repo

5.5% reverse repo

EGX30

28,623

+1% (YTD:+15.0%)

ADX

9,126

-0.6% (YTD: -4.7%)

DFM

4,175

-0.8% (YTD: +2.8%)

S&P 500

4,967

-0.9% (YTD: +4.1%)

FTSE 100

4,918.1

-0.4% (YTD: +8.7%)

Euro Stoxx 50

7,896

+0.2% (YTD: +2.1%)

Brent crude

USD 87.12

-0.2%

Natural gas (Nymex)

USD 1.77

+1.1%

Gold

USD 2,401

-0.5%

BTC

64,795.8

-0.3% (YTD: +65.9%)


THE CLOSING BELL: TADAWUL-

The TASI rose 0.1% yesterday on turnover of SAR 6.4 bn. The index is up 4.6% YTD.

In the green: BATIC (+9.96%), Al Rajhi Takaful (+9.96%) and Gulf General (+9.9%).

In the red: SPM (-3.4%), Alyamamah Steel (-2.8%) and Jarir (-2.8%).

THE CLOSING BELL: NOMU-

The NomuC rose 0.9% yesterdayon turnover of SAR 36.5 mn. The index is up 9.8% YTD.

In the green: Azm (+11.6%), United Mining (+8.3%) and Raoom (+6.4%).

In the red: NBM (-6.8%), Rawasi (-5.6%) and Al Qemam (-5.1%)

CORPORATE ACTIONS-

Shareholders of Tadawul-listed Tasnee have approved the transfer of SAR 905.3 mn from its statutory reserve to retained earnings, it said in a disclosure to Tadawul yesterday. They also approved a SAR 3.5 mn remuneration to board members for FY 2023.

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