October’s price gains a false dawn

A cocktail of an apparent softening of US-China trade tensions coupled with several supply outages pushed the prices of most base metals higher in October. Perhaps somewhat unusually, the price of gold also gained ground as investors remain concerned about the uncertain macroeconomic backdrop. For our part, we think that the slowdown in global economic growth has further to run, which is likely to keep the price of gold elevated and prevent the prices of base metals from rising much in the near term.