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Gold miners rally 5.6% as spot price holds above $4,000
Edgen Stock·Jul 02 2026, 14:00Share to
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[1] Gold Price Today on July 02, 2026 (https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personal ...)[2] Gold Price Today: Gold Rises 1.82% on July 01, 2026 (https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personal ...)[3] Gold Price Today: July 2, 2026 (https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/gold ...)[4] Gold Is Soaring. So Why Has Barrick Fallen Since Its Rebrand? (https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/07/02/go ...)
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Jul 17 2026, 00:27
Bank of Korea raises rate to 2.75% as tech rout deepens
**South Korea's first rate hike in three-and-a-half years compounds pressure on AI-exposed stocks already reeling from a Wall Street tech rout.** The Bank of Korea raised its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 2.75%, the first increase since January 2023, as inflation breached its 2% target and household debt surged. "With developments across all three areas — growth, inflation, and financial stability — supporting the need for an interest rate hike, it was judged appropriate to raise rates at this meeting," Governor Shin Hyun Song said at a press conference in Seoul. All seven monetary policy board members supported the decision. The economy is expanding faster than expected, with the government raising its 2026 growth forecast to 3%, the highest since 2021, driven by semiconductor exports tied to the global AI spending boom. But consumer price inflation exceeded 3% in both May and June, fueled by higher energy costs and a won that has weakened 3.4% against the dollar. The rate decision coincided with a steep selloff in AI and technology stocks on Wall Street, raising the cost of capital for the very sector powering South Korea's export-led recovery. Analysts expect at least one more quarter-point hike this year, taking the policy rate to 3%, with median forecasts pointing to 3.25% by early 2027. The KOSPI fell as much as 9% on Monday, triggering a temporary market-wide trading halt, before recovering some ground. SK Hynix, the country's second-largest chipmaker and a key Nvidia supplier, saw its Korean shares crash 15.4% on Monday after its record $26.5 billion US listing, then rebound 11% by Wednesday. Its American depositary receipts surged 28% after Barclays initiated coverage with an Overweight rating and a $330 target. Samsung Electronics advanced about 6% during the rebound, while Hanmi Semiconductor, a chip-packaging equipment supplier, surged roughly 25%. The won's weakness complicates the BOK's inflation fight. South Korea depends on imported energy, and the currency's decline against the dollar — exacerbated by the US and Israel's conflict with Iran — has pushed up fuel costs. Governor Shin said the timing and pace of any additional rate hikes would depend on incoming data, specifically second-quarter GDP and July inflation figures. The rate hike aligns South Korea with a regional tightening trend. Central banks in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and the Philippines have all raised borrowing costs this year as policymakers across Asia grapple with currency depreciation and sticky inflation. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
Jul 16 2026, 23:58
China's SAMR targets 'involution' in 3-pronged crackdown on predatory pricing
**China's market regulator is escalating its campaign against "involution" — the destructive price competition that has squeezed margins across industries from e-commerce to manufacturing.** China's State Administration for Market Regulation said it will legally punish "involution" practices including predatory pricing and fake discounting, signaling a regulatory clampdown on the price wars that have deflated corporate profits across the world's second-largest economy. "We will severely crack down on enterprises that take the lead in ultra-low-price bidding and illegally engage in dumping," Luo Wen, director of the State Administration for Market Regulation, wrote in an article published in People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party. The regulator plans special actions targeting low-quality, low-price products, anti-monopoly enforcement, and investigations into pricing tactics such as "one-price" and "flash sale" promotions that create a false impression of low prices. SAMR will also conduct cost investigations and increase product quality supervision, with a focus on traditional crafts markets where counterfeit goods have proliferated. The crackdown marks an escalation of Beijing's broader push to curb "involution" — a term that has become a national buzzword for cutthroat competition — as policymakers seek to shift the economy toward higher-value production and away from the volume-driven, low-margin model that has characterized sectors from express delivery to solar manufacturing. The express delivery industry illustrates the scale of the problem. China's courier sector delivered 198.95 billion parcels in 2025, up 13.6% from a year earlier, yet average revenue per parcel fell 6.3% to about 7.51 yuan ($1.11), according to the State Post Bureau. In the first five months of 2026, parcel volume rose 5.2% to 82.87 billion while revenue increased 7.2% to 635.37 billion yuan, implying a modest 1.9% recovery in per-parcel revenue to 7.67 yuan — suggesting the anti-involution campaign may already be gaining traction. ## E-commerce Platforms Face the Sharpest Impact The regulatory push poses the most immediate risk to e-commerce platforms that have built their business models around aggressive discounting. Pinduoduo, Alibaba Group's Taobao and JD.com have all relied on price as a primary competitive weapon, with Pinduoduo's group-buying model and "lowest-price" algorithm driving market share gains at the expense of margins. The SAMR's focus on fake discounting — "one-price" and "flash sale" promotions that mislead consumers — directly targets the promotional tactics these platforms use to drive traffic. Manufacturing sectors locked in price wars — including solar panels, lithium batteries and home appliances — could also face pressure as the regulator steps up cost investigations and quality supervision. The anti-monopoly enforcement component signals that larger players using pricing power to squeeze smaller competitors may face heightened scrutiny. ## A Structural Shift or a Cyclical Intervention? The SAMR's campaign aligns with a broader policy direction set at the Central Economic Work Conference in December 2025, which called for strengthening the security guarantee of strategic resources and shifting away from low-value-added production. The question for investors is whether this represents a genuine structural shift in China's regulatory approach or a cyclical intervention that will fade once economic growth targets come under pressure. Previous anti-monopoly campaigns — such as the 2021 crackdown on technology platforms — produced sharp but temporary market dislocations before regulatory intensity moderated. The current push differs in its explicit targeting of pricing practices across the broader economy rather than focusing on a single sector. For investors, the key metric to watch will be whether the campaign translates into measurable margin improvement in price-sensitive sectors. Express delivery companies including ZTO Express, YTO Express and SF Holding have already shown signs of pricing recovery in recent months, with ZTO's first-quarter revenue per parcel rising 8.2% year-on-year. If this trend broadens, it could signal that the anti-involution campaign is producing real economic effects rather than remaining a rhetorical exercise. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
Jul 16 2026, 23:26
June CPI cools to 3.5% as energy retreats, but risks remain
US consumer inflation slowed more than expected in June, with headline CPI falling to 3.5% year-over-year from 4.2% in May as energy prices posted their steepest monthly decline since the onset of the pandemic. But the reprieve may prove temporary: the collapse of the US-Iran ceasefire has already reversed the gasoline price drop that powered the beat. The Consumer Price Index declined 0.4% month-over-month, the first monthly drop since April 2020 and well below the 0.1% decline economists had forecast, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday. Core CPI, which strips out food and energy, was flat on the month — versus expectations for a 0.2% gain — pushing the annual core rate to 2.6% from 2.9% in May. "The June CPI report is the best inflation surprise of the year, but it's backward-looking," said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial. "The energy shock from the Strait of Hormuz has already spilled over into July gasoline prices, and the risk of broader contagion into other consumer categories is real." Energy prices fell 5.7% in June, the largest monthly decline since April 2020, with gasoline tumbling 9.7%. The drop reflected a fragile US-Iran truce that took hold in late May and held through June. That ceasefire collapsed last week after commercial tankers came under fire in the Strait of Hormuz, triggering military strikes between the US and Iran. The national average gasoline price has already rebounded to $3.86 a gallon as of Tuesday from $3.79 a week ago, according to AAA data, and oil prices climbed to a four-week high after President Donald Trump reimposed a naval blockade of the strait. The June data showed broad-based disinflation beyond energy. Shelter costs rose just 0.1%, the smallest monthly gain since January 2021, while owner's equivalent rent increased 0.2%. Motor vehicle insurance fell 2%, communication services dropped 1.5%, and apparel prices declined 0.6%. Used cars and trucks slipped 0.2%. Food prices edged up 0.2%, with eggs jumping 4.3% and dairy rising 1.2%. **The Energy Risk That Isn't in the CPI** The June report captures none of the geopolitical escalation that began in early July. Gasoline prices had already risen 26.7% year-over-year in June despite the monthly decline, and the renewed conflict in the Middle East threatens to push energy costs higher in the months ahead. The Producer Price Index, released Wednesday, reinforced the disinflation narrative — headline PPI fell 0.3% month-over-month against expectations for flat readings, with the annual rate cooling to 5.5% from 6% in May. But producer prices remain elevated by historical standards, and energy inputs are the primary wild card. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, in prepared remarks to lawmakers Tuesday, said the central bank had "no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation" and that getting policy right was "the star we steer by." The Fed's benchmark overnight rate stands at 3.5% to 3.75%, unchanged since the June 16-17 meeting, where minutes showed policymakers' concerns about inflation mounted. Markets see a 60% probability of a quarter-point rate hike at the September meeting, according to OIS pricing, with the July 28-29 meeting expected to deliver a hold. The last time headline CPI posted a monthly decline was April 2020, when the pandemic crushed demand. That episode was followed by years of above-target inflation. The current disinflation is similarly driven by a transient factor — a ceasefire that no longer exists — raising the risk that June's benign reading becomes an outlier rather than the start of a trend. If energy prices continue their July rebound, the Fed's path to its 2% target lengthens, and the case for rate hikes strengthens regardless of what the June CPI print shows. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.