Asia

European, Asian stocks fall and U.S. equity-index futures traded mixed on Monday with fresh memories of the Dow Jones rising to under 1 point of 20,000 on Friday. The dollar has rebounded on fresh geopolitical concerns, while the pound extends its decline from Friday and has slide to 10 week lows on a Sunday interview from Theresa May which suggested a "Hard Brexit" may be in the cards. Oil dropped below $54 a barrel on Iran supply concerns, while gold rose 0.6% to $1,180. 

Submitted by Koos Jansen, BullionStar.com

Kindly be advised to have read my posts The Mechanics Of The Chinese Domestic Gold Market and The Great Physical Gold Supply & Demand Illusion before continuing.

"When robbery is done in open daylight by sanction of the law, as it is done today, then any act of honor or restitution has to be hidden underground."

-Ragnar Danneskjold

Remember when back in April we showed a strange map of the Iranian oil tanker armada, which according to Windward data was storing as much as 50 million barrels offshore, yet which was just sitting on anchor going nowhere?

As a reminder, Iran has lacked sufficient land storage facilities to store its oil and, to enable it to keep pumping crude, has relied on its tanker fleet to park excess stocks until it can find buyers.

While China's unprecedented currency moves have quickly become the main talking point across global markets which otherwise have started off 2017 in an eerily calm fashion, it is the sudden surge in two-way volatility that has emerged a major threat to global market stability.