CHINA

Wall Street was poised to open about 1 percent higher on Monday, building on last month's solid gains as investors focused on encouraging corporate results, including strong bank earnings out of Europe.

Gold prices slipped below $1,180 an ounce in Europe on Monday knocked by a dearth of haven buying as confidence in the financial markets improved, though some emergent physical demand limited losses. Spot gold was bid at $1,177.65 an ounce at 6:21 a.m. ET, against $1,181.50 late in New York on Friday. U.S. gold futures for August delivery fell $4.00 to $1,179.90.

A broad fall in the dollar has propelled the yen higher, bringing the Japanese currency within range of levels it has not traded at for 15 years and raising speculation whether even more gains will tempt Japanese authorities to intervene.

Stock index futures were sharply higher on Monday, building on last month's solid gains, as investors focused on encouraging corporate results.

The dollar index hit a three-month low on Monday, hurt by worries that the U.S. economy's recovery is losing steam, while the high-yielding Australian dollar reached a three-month high, buoyed by a rise in equities.

Stock index futures pointed to a higher open for Wall Street on Monday, with the S&P 500 futures up 1.1 percent, Nasdaq futures 0.8 percent higher, and futures for the Dow Jones industrial average up 1 percent by 4:38 a.m. ET.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group <8306.T> plans to buy BNP Paribas' stake in a Chinese fund venture for $50 million, giving Japan's biggest bank access to China's $300 billion mutual funds market, two sources with direct knowledge of the deal said on Monday.

Asian stocks rose on Monday on strong corporate earnings and shrugged off news that Chinese manufacturing shrank in July amid investor hopes that the world's fastest growing major economy will expand strongly.

China's Geely will complete its $1.8 billion purchase of Ford Motor Co's Volvo unit on Monday, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said, capping China's biggest purchase of a foreign car maker.

Gold regained strength on Monday after jewelers resurfaced at lower levels, while strong equities lifted platinum group metals despite a lack of buying interest from automakers. Asian stocks gained while the dollar hit a three-month low against a basket of currencies due to concerns the U.S. economy's recovery was losing momentum following the release of poor economic growth data.

Oil rose toward 12-week highs above $79 on Monday, driven by investor appetite for commodities and energy risk, with macroeconomic indicators in top consumers the United States and China showing slower but sustained growth.

The Australian Dollar has opened up firmly above 0.9000 this morning after the release of two major announcements on the weekend: US GDP Q2 figures and China PMI (purchasing manger's index) for the month of July.

Employment, it turns out, may not be such a laggard after all.

More than a million BlackBerry users may have key services in Saudi Arabia and the UAE cut off after authorities stepped up demands on smartphone maker Research In Motion for access to encrypted messages sent over the device.

A Sub-committee on agriculture, appointed by the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry, met for the first time and decided to come up with a plan to achieve higher growth in the agriculture sector through public sector involvement. The country's average farm growth in the first three years of the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2007-12) has been only 2.2 per cent, against the target of 4 per cent for the entire period. The mid-term appraisal has estimated the average growth in the sector to...

After a rally towards the end of 2009, base metals have tumbled in the first half of 2010 on China monetary tightening and concerns about sovereign debt problems in Euro Zone nations. Apart from the temporary upward movements seen in copper, nickel and aluminium analysts hold divergent views on prospects for base metals ahead in 2011. Against this backdrop, Atul Shah, Head of Emkay Commotrade, talks to Sreekumar Raghavan of Commodity Online that prospects for base metals in the medium term looks...

The base metals have recovered from the depressed levels of early June with prices trending higher in July and hence Natixis Commodity Markets maintains a positive view for base metals. The impact of escalating sovereign debt crisis in Europe and unctertainy over China's efforts to curb excessive credit creation which were the main concerns of the first quarter of 2010 has eased, Natixis Commodity Markets maintains.

With a series of auto makers announcing good sales and profits this week, palladium prices soared to new heights on Friday. Palladium settled up $22.50, or 4.8 percent, at $491.20 an ounce. Palladium and platinum, which also is higher, are used in making catalytic converters for cars.

Investors in India are waking up to the power of gold. In a recent survey, it has come out that Asian investors are more likely to buy gold in the next six months than their North American and European counterparts.

Honda Motor Co and Renault joined their rivals in reporting strong results for the quarter to the end of June, as the auto industry faces growing concerns over slowing demand in the United States, China and Europe.

China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, the fruit of three decades of rapid growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.