welcome back to our weekly update I'm Charlotte McLeod with the investing News Network and I'm here to give you a quick look at our top stories for the week [Music] the gold price spent time below the 2 000 per ounce Mark again this week falling as low as 1957 Midway through the period the yellow metal remains historically high with room to move up but various factors are weighing on its short-term prospects among those factors is the US dollar which strengthened this week despite uncertainty surrounding the 31.4


trillion debt ceiling Democrats and Republicans were still in talks as of May 24th that had not reported significant progress treasury secretary Janet Yellen has pegged June 1st as the ACT State the time by which the U.S will default if it doesn't raise the debt ceiling however some commentators have suggested there's more wiggle room than that Market Watchers were also looking out for the U.S federal reserve's latest meeting minutes this week released on May 24th they showed that the Central


Bank continues to view the American banking system as sound and resilient it's two percent Target for inflation remains in place but experts believe a June rate hike looks unlikely as we wrap up I want to take a look at the lithium sector which we've been hearing more and more about this year the battery metal is a crucial component of electric vehicle batteries and as the energy transition gains steam car makers are moving to secure supply of lithium and other important raw materials Ford is the latest company looking to


lock down its lithium supply on May 22nd the company signed five deals in a bid to immediate's lithium needs Ford now has arrangements with major miners Albemarle and sqm in addition to deals with the mask of lithium Compass minerals and privately owned energy source minerals only Albemarle and sqm are currently producing Ford's new lithium supply arrangements are all with companies that are operating in North America or in countries that have free trade agreements with the US this will allow the company to benefit


from tax credits under the U.S inflation reduction act which was introduced last year and is intended to support the build out of a more resilient American Electric Vehicle supply chain Ford already has deals with ASX listed lion Town resources and eye and ear the financial times calculates that Ford's new deals could give it enough lithium for nearly 1.1 million electric vehicles a year assuming that all projects scale up on time and can deliver material consistently that number excludes volumes from sqm and


energy source minerals which have not yet been disclosed it's worth noting that not everyone is optimistic about Ford Supply Arrangements expert Joe Lowry of global lithium said on Twitter that the company is late to the party and playing catch-up he doesn't believe that all the lithium it's secured will come through that's all for this week if you like this video make sure you subscribe to our Channel and turn on notifications so you don't miss future updates and interviews you can also follow us on


social media or click below for our report or any article mentioned in this video we'll see you next time [Music] [Music] foreign