(Bloomberg) — It’s easy to forget now but there was a time early on in the pandemic when the price of gold was in freefall.It was a curious thing, what with the virus sparking a collapse in the global economy, and it would prove in time to be one of the great head-fakes in the recent history of financial markets. For the pandemic of 2020 would soon show itself to be the driving force behind one of the most ferocious rallies the gold market has ever seen. At the close of trading in New York on Friday, bullion had spiraled to $1,902.02 an ounce, some 30% higher than the low it hit in March and just 1% off a record high set back in 2011.The virus has unleashed a torrent of forces that are conspiring to fuel relentless demand for the perceived safety from turmoil that gold provides. There’s the fear of further government-ordered lockdowns; and politicians’ decision to push through unprecedented stimulus packages; and central bankers’ decision to print money faster than they ever have before to finance that spending; and the plunge in inflation-adjusted bond yields into negative territory in the U.S.; and the dollar’s sudden decline against the euro and yen.All these things, when taken together, have even triggered concern in some financial circles that stagflation — a rare combination of sluggish growth and rising inflation that erodes the value of fixed-income investments — could take hold across parts of the developed world.In the U.S., where the virus is still raging and the economic recovery is stalling, this debate is growing louder. Investor expectations for annual inflation over the next decade, as measured by a bond-market metric known as breakevens, have moved higher the past four months after plunging in March. On Friday, they hit 1.5%. And while that remains below pre-pandemic levels and below the Federal Reserve’s own 2% target, it is almost a full percentage point higher than the 0.59% yield that benchmark 10-year Treasury bonds pay.The main driver behind gold’s latest rally “has been real rates that continue to plummet and don’t show signs of easing anytime soon,” Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., said by phone. Gold is also drawing investors “concerned that stagflation will win out and will likely warrant even further accommodation from the Fed.”U.S. bond markets have been a driving force behind the rush to gold, which is serving as an attractive hedge as yields on Treasuries that strip out the effects of inflation fall below zero. Investors are looking for safe havens that won’t lose value.The mania for gold right now has trickled down to Main Street. Retail investors have helped put ETF holdings backed by gold on track for an 18th straight weekly gain, the longest streak since 2006. Meanwhile, gold posted its seventh weekly gain on Friday, and analysts don’t expect the increases to end anytime soon.“When interest rates are zero or near zero, then gold is an attractive medium to have because you don’t have to worry about not getting interest on your gold,” Mark Mobius, co-founder at Mobius Capital Partners, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “I would be buying now and continue to buy.”Analysts have been predicting huge upside for gold for several months. In April, Bank of America Corp. raised its 18-month gold-price target to $3,000 an ounce.“The global pandemic is providing a sustained boost to gold,” Francisco Blanch, BofA’s head of commodities and derivatives research, said Friday, citing impacts including falling real rates, growing inequality and declining productivity. “Moreover, as China’s GDP quickly converges to U.S. levels helped by the widening gap in Covid-19 cases, a tectonic geopolitical shift could unfold, further supporting the case for our $3,000 target over the next 18 months.”Gold Rally May Extend Into 2021 on Strong Fundamentals: BI FocusBank of America’s bold prediction was made after gold prices initially dropped in March as investors sought cash to cover losses on riskier assets. Prices quickly recovered after a surprise cut to the Fed’s benchmark rate and signs that the economic toll of the coronavirus would lead to massive stimulus efforts from global governments and central banks.This isn’t the first time gold has gotten help from central bank stimulus programs. From December 2008 to June 2011, the Fed bought $2.3 trillion of debt and held borrowing costs near zero percent in a bid to shore up growth, helping send bullion to a record $1,921.17 in September 2011.The crisis a decade ago was all about banks, said Afshin Nabavi, head of trading at Swiss refiner and dealer MKS PAMP Group, who nows sees gold “pointing towards $2,000.”“This time, to be honest, I do not see the end of the tunnel,” he said, at least until U.S. elections in November.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/2EgiOsB

The sports industry is continuing to feel the blow to U.S. ticket sales as a result of the pandemic. Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman breaks down the latest data from TicketlQ.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/30KxcRA

Forbes Autos Contributor, and North American Car, Truck and SUV Juror Karl Brauer, joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to break down Tesla’s second quarter earnings results and the automaker’s plans for a new car plant in the U.S.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/3f225Gd

On Friday, President Trump signed a new executive order which lowered the cost of drugs by tying them to the price consumers pay outside of the United States. Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, President and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), joins The Final Round panel to discuss the impact that this could have on the pharmaceutical industry.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/3f6eb1f

Investor’s Advantage Corp Founder and President John Grace joins Yahoo Finance’s Akiko Fujita to discuss the country’s economic outlook amid renewed lockdowns in some states as COVID-19 cases climb.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/30Kmo63

(Bloomberg) — Bridgewater Associates former co-chief executive officer Eileen Murray escalated a feud over her departure, accusing the $138 billion firm founded by billionaire Ray Dalio of threatening to withhold her deferred compensation because she went public with gender discrimination allegations.Murray, 62, has been negotiating with the world’s biggest hedge fund for three months over her exit package — a fight that has dragged on because Bridgewater’s offer was less than what has been paid to men who left the firm and below the status of her position, according to one of Murray’s advisers. It was the third time since 2017 that the firm had offered her compensation that was lower than that of male colleagues of comparable levels, according to the person.In her suit, filed Friday in federal court in Connecticut, Murray says the firm told her in writing on July 14 that her public disclosures about her dispute with the company will lead to forfeiture of her deferred compensation, which she said could range from $20 million to $100 million. She called the firm’s attempt to withhold the deferred pay an “improper gambit to silence her voice” and a “cynical plan to intimidate and silence her.”Murray has joined several boards since she left Bridgewater in April, including being elected chairman of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in June. She said that and other business opportunities required her to disclose the existence of her gender discrimination, unequal pay and breach-of-contract dispute with Bridgewater.Bridgewater didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Murray joined Bridgewater in 2009 and became co-CEO two years later. When she departed in April she was the lone woman among the top four non-investment executives at the firm, and the longest tenured other than Dalio.Murray also stands as a role model for women, the suit said, and she “feels a personal duty to uphold the principles of fair and equal treatment that she has publicly avowed for women in the workplace.”Bridgewater can play hardball with employees. In late 2017, the firm took two former staffers to arbitration, accusing them of stealing trade secrets. Earlier this month, arbitrators found the company brought the case in bad faith to slow the duo’s progress in opening their own money management firm, according to a filing in New York state court. Bridgewater said it accepted the panel’s decision.Bridgewater’s main hedge fund lost 20.6% in the first half of this year, and the firm said on Friday it’s planning job cuts because it won’t need the same number of support staff as more employees work from home and new technologies are changing the types of people it needs to serve clients.The case is Murray v Bridgewater Associates, 20-cv-1052, U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut.(Updates with background from the suit in fourth paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/3jEARck

Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) defied analyst predictions to release its second-quarter results, which were ahead of…

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/3jB21Rl

Does the July share price for Gravity Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRVY) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate…

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/2ZZcWN2

Gold prices finished the week on an up note, rising 0,75% and closing the week up more than 5%. Optimism in the US continues to fade as more workers now believe their temporary job losses will become permanent. US yields continued to move lower, helping to undermine the greenback, and paving the way for higher gold prices.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/39rZeoN

(Bloomberg) — Intel Corp.’s decision to consider outsourcing manufacturing heralds the end of an era in which the company, and the U.S., dominated the semiconductor industry. The move could reverberate well beyond Silicon Valley, influencing global trade and geopolitics.The Santa Clara, California-based company has been the largest chipmaker for most of the past 30 years by combining the best designs with cutting-edge factories, several of which are still based in the U.S.Most other U.S. chip companies shut or sold domestic plants years ago, and had other firms make the components, mostly in Asia. Intel held out, arguing that doing both improved each side of its operation and created better semiconductors. That strategy is in tatters now, with the company’s factories struggling to keep up with the latest 7-nanometer production process.After Chief Executive Officer Bob Swan said Intel is considering outsourcing, the company’s shares slumped 16% on Friday, the most since March, when the stock market plummeted in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.“We view the roadmap missteps to be a stunning failure for a company once known for flawless execution, and could well represent the end of Intel’s computing dominance,” Chris Caso, an analyst at Raymond James, wrote in a research note on Friday.Swan says where a semiconductor is made isn’t that important. However, domestic chip production has become a national priority for China, and some U.S. politicians and national-security experts consider sending this technical knowhow overseas to be a potentially dangerous mistake.“We’ve seen how vulnerable we are,” John Cornyn, a top Senate Republican, said in June when U.S. lawmakers proposed an estimated $25 billion in funding and tax credits to strengthen domestic semiconductor production.Intel’s Xeon chips run computers and data centers that support the design of nuclear power stations, spacecraft and jets, while helping governments quickly understand intelligence and other crucial information.Many of these processors are made at facilities in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico. If Intel outsources this work, it would likely be done by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which focuses on production and is currently the world leader. It’s based in Hsinchu, one of the closest Taiwanese cities to China, which considers the Asian island a rogue province rather than an independent country.“With the latest push out of process technology, we believe that Intel has zero-to-no chance of catching or surpassing TSMC at least for the next half decade, if not ever,” Susquehanna analyst Chris Rolland wrote in a research note. He thinks Intel should sell its plants to TSMC, although he says that’s unlikely.Over the years, Intel has spent tens of billions of dollars updating its factories, and all of Swan’s predecessors touted them as a crucial advantage that kept the company ahead of the rest of the industry. As the largest chip producer, Intel benefited from economies of scale and attracted the most experienced engineers and scientists.The rise of smartphones and other mobile devices changed all that. Intel dabbled in mobile chips, but never committed its best production and design to the area, preferring to prioritize its existing PC and server chip businesses. When smartphone sales took off, phone makers used other processors from companies like Qualcomm Inc. or they designed their own, like Apple Inc. And TSMC factories churned these components out.While Intel makes hundreds of millions of chips a year now, TSMC produces more than a billion annually. That’s given the Taiwanese company more experience to improve its factories, helping TSMC’s engineers overtake their Intel counterparts in technical execution.Read more: Intel’s Chipmaking Throne Is Challenged by Taiwanese UpstartSwan said on Friday that Intel’s products are still the best, despite the manufacturing delays. But by opening the door to outsourcing, the CEO endangers one of the last bastions of U.S. technology leadership.“By outsourcing leading edge technology, presumably to TSMC, Intel would give up what has been its main source of competitive advantage for 50 years,” Caso of Raymond James said.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo Finance https://ift.tt/300rkEK