Rising tensions in the Middle East saw oil, gold, copper, and silver all rise on Monday, but iron ore bucked the trend with a 2% drop in Asian trading.
Gold surged to a new all-time record closing price of AU$2,513.40 an ounce after touching a high of AU$2,522 an ounce during trading. That was a gain of 1.6% for the day.
This also saw the World Gold Council’s Australian dollar price jump to well over AU$3,700 an ounce, reaching AU$3,754.
The Aussie dollar traded steadily around 65.80 US cents while US bond yields edged lower, as did the greenback, due to safe-haven buying as tensions escalated following more reports of an Iranian strike against Israel.
The 10-year US Treasury yield fell to 3.91%.
Gold dragged silver higher with the Comex price settling up 1.7% at US$28.05 an ounce. Comex copper also rebounded, this time back over US$4 a pound to end at US$4.06 a pound for a gain of nearly 2% on the day.
And oil prices surged more than 3%, pushing US West Texas Intermediate crude to US$79.66 and Brent crude to nearly US$82 a barrel—there goes the low inflation expectation for August.
The fall in iron ore prices was expected, given the narrow trading range in the past week and increased dependence on news from China rather than global issues.
Even though portside stock of ore fell for a second week, gloom about steelmaker margins weighed down prices as one major steel company cut prices on its hot-rolled steel coil products.