EUR/USD
1.08756
-0.063%
Gold
2985.47
0.051%
Oil
67.459
0.857%
USD/JPY
148.864
0.148%
GBP/USD
1.29355
0.004%
GBP/JPY
192.565
0.151%
Real-time News
On March 17, local time, the controversy over the 100 billion euro fiscal reform plan in the German Bundestag continued to escalate. Several members of the German Bundestag submitted an emergency application to the German Federal Constitutional Court in an attempt to prevent the vote originally scheduled for March 18. They believe that the government has not provided enough time for discussion and that the adjustment of key clauses has been too hasty to be fully reviewed. Among them, some members of the German Bundestag have raised objections to the German Federal Constitutional Court for the second time and requested a postponement of the vote. In addition, Sarah Wagenknecht, leader of the left-wing party Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance, called on members of the parliament who oppose the fiscal plan to take action to prevent the old parliament from passing the bill before the new parliament convenes. According to the German Basic Law, if at least one-third of the members request that the new federal parliament must be convened immediately, the old parliament will lose its legislative power. At present, the far-right German Choice Party and the Left Party in the new parliament have a total of 216 seats, exceeding the statutory one-third threshold. This means that if they jointly apply, the special meeting of the old parliament will not be able to continue.March 17, UBS Group became the latest investment bank to raise its gold price forecast as the likelihood of a protracted global trade war increases. Analysts expect this situation to continue to drive investors to buy more gold, the ultimate safe-haven asset. Analysts including Wayne Gordon and Giovanni Staunovo said in a report on Monday that as the escalating trade conflict highlights the role of gold as a store of value in uncertain times, gold will trade at $3,200 an ounce in the next four quarters, higher than the banks previous long-held forecast of $3,000 an ounce. The bank pointed out that U.S. President Trumps plan to impose broad reciprocal tariffs and additional industry-specific tariffs on April 2 is an imminent risk event that may stimulate continued safe-haven demand across the market. At the same time, gold prices will also benefit from the deterioration of the U.S. economic outlook, and traders currently expect the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates further as concerns about a recession grow. "In other words, what we are seeing is a shift from a Trump put to a Fed put," the analysts said. “We continue to believe that allocating around 5% of a balanced U.S. dollar portfolio to gold is optimal from a long-term diversification perspective.”On March 17, Ji Xiaoling, the market inspection commissioner of the State Administration for Market Regulation, said that we will strictly carry out supervision and law enforcement to ensure that consumers can consume safely and understand consumption. Safety is the basic premise of rest assured consumption, and integrity is an important guarantee for rest assured consumption. We will carry out special rectification actions against market problems such as illegal food additives, counterfeiting, price fraud, false propaganda, etc., which are strongly reflected by the masses, and strengthen the supervision of the recall of defective products to make the market safer, more orderly and standardized. In recent years, market supervision departments have continued to carry out "iron fist" actions in the field of peoples livelihood, and have concentrated on investigating and punishing a number of illegal and irregular behaviors such as illegal food additives, false advertising, and cheating in gas pump metering, which have formed a strong deterrent to illegal operators. This year, we will continue to deploy and carry out the "Guardian Consumption" Iron Fist Action, so please continue to pay attention.On March 17, Chen Yongjia, head of the Employment Promotion Department of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said at a press conference of the State Council Information Office that this year, the focus will be on strengthening the reduction of burdens and job stability, job expansion incentives, entrepreneurship support and job matching, and promoting employment and entrepreneurship for key groups. In terms of strengthening the reduction of burdens and job stability, the main focus is to continue to implement the policy of phased reduction of unemployment and work-related injury insurance premiums, encourage financial institutions to innovate special loans for job stability and job expansion, moderately increase the loan amount for small and medium-sized enterprises, expand the coverage, and guide enterprises to stabilize jobs. In terms of strengthening job expansion incentives, the main focus is to promptly implement tax incentives, guaranteed loans, employment subsidies and other policies, expand the coverage of one-time job expansion subsidy policies, coordinate and make good use of various industrial funds to promote employment, and encourage enterprises to absorb more employment.On March 17, Bastian Freitag, head of German fixed income at Rothschild Wealth Management, said that the Federal Reserve is expected to remain on hold this week, and the earliest time window for the next rate cut is in June. Freitag said in a report that inflation continues to stagnate above the Feds 2% target, and this sideways trend is likely to continue. The punitive tariffs that the US government has already imposed and the tariffs that will still be imposed may continue to raise prices. "At the same time, we observe an increase in survey-based inflation expectations, which leaves the Fed with less room to cut interest rates prematurely," Freitag said. He expects the Fed to cut interest rates in June, September and the first quarter of 2026.
