Gold, Oil, Dollar and Stocks Up, but Bond Prices and Bitcoin Down – Currency Thoughts
Gold, Oil, Dollar and Stocks Up, but Bond Prices and Bitcoin Down
August 8, 2025
Gold rose 0.8% overnight as gold bar imports were added to the reciprocal tariff list.
The price of WTI oil firmed 0.5%, whereas Bitcoin’s cost slipped by 0.5%.
U.S. stock markets opened moderately higher in contrast to declines of other stock markets this Friday amounting to 1.8% in India, 0.4% in Singapore, 0.6% in South Korea and Hong Kong and 0.1% in China. Equities are a bit lower in Germany, France and the U.K. but moderately up in Spain and Italy. Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.9% even as the government lowered projected GDP growth in FY2025 and FY2026 to below 1.0%.
China’s current account surplus of $290.5 billion in the first half of 2025 was 184% larger than a year earlier.
Japan’s current account surplus in the first half amounted to JPY 14.898 trillion, similar to JPY 13.383 a year earlier. Japanese household spending dived 5.2% in June, unwinding May’s increase of 4.6% and resulting in a diminished 1.3% rise from June 2024. The confidence of Japanese service sector workers improved for a third straight month in June. With a reading of 45.2, the economy watchers index rose to a 5-month high, but at 45.2 was still below the 50 threshold.
Like last week’s U.S. jobs report, Canadian labor market statistics released today proved disappointing. The jobless rate printed at 6.9% for the third time in four months, just a tad below May’s 44-month peak of 7.0%. Employment plunged by 40.8 thousand workers, defying expectations of an increase. Labor force participation dropped 0.2 percentage points to a 4-month low, and average hourly wage growth rose 0.3 percentage points above June’s 40-month low of 3.2%.
Swiss consumer sentiment dipped a point to -33. Switzerland has been tagged with the largest U.S. tariff (39%) of any European economy.
Several consumer price reports today gave a portent of the inflationary potential of America’s tariff offensive.
- CPI inflation of 4.3% in Hungary in July was up from 3.0% last September.
- Lithuanian CPI inflation climbed toa 3-month high of 3.8% last month versus 0.1% in October 2024.
- Latvian inflation also printed at 3.8% in July, having bottomed at 0.1% in March 2024.
- Greek CPI inflation of 3.1% was at a 15-month high.
- Czech CPI inflation eased back 0.2 percentage points below June’s 6-month high to 2.7%.
The Bank of Mexico’s overnight interbank rate has been cut by 25 basis points to 7.75%, bringing the drop so far in 2025 to 225 basis points on top of 125 bps of easing in 2024. Mexican consumer price inflation slowed further in July to a 5-year low of 3.5%.
The National Bank of Romania’s policy interest rate was left unchanged at 6.5%, its level since a pair of 25-basis point cuts in June and August of 2024. CPI inflation of 5.7% in June was above the central bank’s target of 2.5%, and officials are predicting that inflation will rise this quarter before embarking on only a gradual deceleration thereafter.
Copyright 2025, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: Bank of Mexico, Chinese and Japanese current accounts, National Bank of Romania
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