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  Welcome back to our weekly update. I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and we're going to run through a few of this week's biggest stories in the mining industry. If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to hit the like button, subscribe to our channel, and of course, leave us a comment below. Let's get into it. [Music] The gold price cooled off this week as tariff related uncertainty reached a resolution. The yellow metal was thrust into headlines late last week when US

Customs and Border Protection told a Swiss refiner that 1 kilogram and 100 ounce gold bars would be subject to Trump administration tariffs that went into effect on August 7th. Gold is one of Switzerland's top exports to the US. And with the country facing a 39% levy, questions were rife about what the impact could be. Clarification came on August 11th when US President Donald Trump said on Truth Social, his social media platform, that gold will not be tariffed. While the news calmed market

participants, Keith Weiner of Monetary Metals told me that the incident could have long-term impacts. He said the tariff confusion caused the spread between spot gold and gold futures to blow out, creating difficulties for entities using the market to hedge. Those include jewelers and refiners, among others. Here's how Keith explained it. >> You know, once you've put the scare into everybody, you can't just say, "Oh, sorry, just kidding." You can't really do that. And so now

we've done damage and um, you know, we'll see what happens to that spread over time. We'll see how, you know, users of the futures market, you know, adapt. There are other markets in the world that would be competing for this hedging business. Um, you know, maybe it moves to Singapore, maybe it moves to Dubai, maybe it moves to London. Um, you know, and the US loses not only a little more trust, but also a little bit of volume on uh what had been the biggest or what is currently the biggest futures

market. >> This week also brought the release of the latest US consumer price index and producer price index data. On a seasonally adjusted basis, CPI for July was up 0.2% 2% from the previous month and 2.7% from the year ago period. Meanwhile, core CPI, which excludes the food and energy categories, was up 0.3% month-on-month and 3.1% from the same time last year. While those numbers were largely in line with expectations, seasonally adjusted July PPI figures came in hotter than expected, rising

0.9% month-on-month compared to Dow Jones forecast of 0.2%. Core PPI was a similar story, increasing 0.9% from June compared to an estimated rise of just 0.3%. Speaking about the implications of the data, Danielle D. Martino Booth of Qi Research said it shows companies aren't yet passing tariff related price increases onto consumers. Here's what she said about when that could start to happen. Well, I do think um I do think that we will see where companies feel they can push through price increases. I think

we'll see that. Um we saw quite a bit of food inflation uh in the producer price index. And when you're talking about things like essentials and especially with very very low margin types of sales, you know, we we could see uh what we call the substitution effect uh begin where where households end up buying other things. It the classic is always that they trade down from steak to ground beef um or trade down from, you know, from beef to chicken and and we're going to see whether or not that that

plays out. Again, you know, we have millions upon millions of Americans working multiple jobs, working in the gig economy, uh not necessarily by choice. You know, we've got a record percentage of Americans, young adults, living with their parents. Uh so clearly budgets are stretched and we will see where these price increases are able to be passed along. Bank of America puts out some very timely data on credit card, debit card spending, and we've seen a lot of what we call discretionary

spending pressure, whether it be furniture, um, or maybe RV sales. RV uh, inflation has gone up quite a bit, but those sales have come down as well. So again, it some difficult decisions for those who occupy the seauite. While the PPI data has slightly dampened expectations that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates when it meets in September, CME Group's Fed Watch tool still shows a strong probability of a reduction at that time. I'll leave the links to the full interviews with Keith

and Danielle in the video description. Definitely check them out if you haven't already, and let me know in the comments who you'd like to see me interview next. Contemporary Amperex Technology, better known as CL, said on August 10th that it will be halting production at a lithium mine in China for at least three months. Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that CL, which is the world's largest electric vehicle battery maker, failed to extend a key mining permit. The company is reportedly in talks about

a renewal, but is prepared for a month's long shutdown. Share prices of lithium miners rose on the news, boyed by expectations that the CL mine closure will help reduce over supply in the sector. Excess output has caused Chinese lithium prices to drop 80% since the end of 2022, and investors are keen to see a turnaround for the belleaguered battery metal. Mitsubishi is set to acquire a 30% stake in Hud Bay Minerals, Arizona based copper world subsidiary for 600 million. Hud Bay called Mitsubishi its

strategic partner of choice while Mitsubishi said the investment will help advance its copper growth plans. A feasibility study is in the works for Copper World and a definitive feasibility study is expected in mid 2026. HUDbay shareholders reacted positively to the news which follows last month's announcement of a 50% tariff on US imports of semi-finished copper products and intensive copper derivative products. The company projects that Copper World will result in a direct 1.5 billion investment into the US critical

minerals supply chain. Thank you for watching. If you like this video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a comment below. [Music]