Gold soared to almost a six-year high on Tuesday on escalating U.S.-Iran tensions and U.S.-Sino trade anxiety, leading traders to pile into safe-haven government debt and to snap up the yen and Swiss franc at the expense of the dollar.
The dollar, meanwhile, fell to a three-month low against the euro and dropped to its weakest against the Japanese yen since early January as the prospect of an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve knocked demand for the U.S. currency.
The yen also benefited from concerns about tensions between the United States and Iran, which said U.S. sanctions permanently closed the path to diplomacy between the two countries.
MSCI’s gauge of global equity markets, most major European indexes and stocks on Wall Street slipped, with bank shares dipping ahead of speeches by at least five Fed policymakers later in the day, including Chair Jerome Powell.
via Reuters
