【TOP1 Evening】 Gold price hits eight-week high while Ethereum hits record high

Gold: Gold price starts to rise in the new year.

Spot gold rose 1.1% to US$1,919.11 per ounce, earlier hitting the highest level of US$1,925.05 since November 9; US gold futures GCv1 climbed 1.6% to US$1,925.

Dominic Schnider, Head of Commodities and Asia-Pacific Exchange Rates at UBS Wealth Management in Hong Kong, said that due to the raging epidemic, data in the United States and Europe are likely to weaken, which supports gold prices.

After British Prime Minister Johnson hinted that it would take more stringent blockade measures, and Japan considered Tokyo and surrounding areas into a state of emergency, gold prices were boosted.

Stock market: European stocks fell due to the intensified epidemic in Europe.

Germany fell 42 points and France fell 48 points. The British epidemic was out of control, the stock market fell 1.45%, and the FTSE fell 95 points. US stocks rose, Du Jones rose 197 points, S&P rose 24 points, and Nasdaq rose 42 points.

Dow Jones rose 7% for the whole year, Nasdaq rose 16%, the world's largest stock market gainers.

The Japanese stock market closed lower on Monday after Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said that with the rise in new crown cases and the tightening of the domestic medical system, the government will consider declaring a state of emergency in the Metropolitan Tokyo area. The Nikkei .N225 closed down 0.68% to 27,258.38 points, the biggest one-day drop in two weeks.

US oil futures rose 0.61% to 49.13 US dollars, while oil futures rose 0.70% to 52.50 US dollars. West Texas Oil reported no increase at 48.32, while Brent Oil rose 0.50% to $50.86.

The Secretary-General of the Petroleum Exporting Organization (OPEC) Mohammad Barkindo warned that although crude oil demand is expected to increase by 5.9 million barrels per day to 95.9 million barrels per day this year, there is still a lot of downside for oil prices. The demand risk in the first half of this year is hard to ignore. OPEC had previously held a meeting to discuss the production level in February, and also worried that as the new crown epidemic intensified, the demand risk in the first half of the year would seep into the market.

Forex: The beginning of the new year for the US dollar fell across the board.

Investors dumped the U.S. dollar and bought any other assets during the Asian session, betting that the world would recover from the epidemic, thus pushing up other currencies.

EUR/USD rose 0.3% to $1.2252. GBP/USD rose to 1.3698 USD, the first time since the beginning of 2018. The yuan/dollar rose 0.9% to a 30-month high of 6.4647.

The safe-haven currency yen rose 0.3% to 102.94 yen against the dollar, which is expected to test the resistance at 102.55. Earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said that with the rise in new crown cases and the tightening of the domestic medical system, the government will consider declaring a state of emergency in the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area.

Following the rise of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency Ethereum continued to hit a record high on Monday, with the price of the currency rising above $1,100, an increase of more than 30% within 24 hours.