Gold futures in New York for delivery in December, the most active contract, touched a high of $1,306.90, in massive volumes of nearly 26m ounces by noon, before paring some of those gains.

The gold price received a boost last week on escalating tensions between US and North Korea, but the safe-haven buying related to the stand-off with the dictatorship soon faded.

On Friday the attention of gold bulls turned to US domestic matters including minutes from the Federal Reserve, showing little urgency about the pace of interest rate hikes in the US.

Those comments coupled with the lack of progress on fiscal stimulus policy in Washington put pressure on the dollar and yields on US government bonds which usually moves in the opposite direction of gold.

Ole Hansen, chief of commodity strategy at Saxo said on Friday due to "increased risk of US policy paralysis the market is showing accelerated signs of nervousness":

While North Korean worries come and go it increasingly looks like Donald Trump will be a consistent source of support given the unpredictability of his presidency. This as political frictions between the White House and Congress continues to rumble and President Trump's administration looks increasingly dysfunctional and isolated.
In late 2016, optimism about the economic impact of a Trump presidency and Republican control of both houses saw the greenback climb to 14-year highs, but sentiment has soured since then.

The US dollar index, measured against a basket of currencies of the country's major trading partners, fell to below 94 on Friday and the currency is now worth 8.5% less than this time last year.

The US dollar's all-time peak of 164.7 was reached in February 1985. That coincided with a bottom in the price of gold of $284.25 an ounce.

“I hope that our relations will be developing very intensively, including those in the defense sphere, because 95% of our military hardware is of Russian manufacture,” Battulga told TASS in an interview. “Defense is one of the most important spheres of cooperation.”

Secondly, there is agriculture, he went on to say.

“In the Soviet era we used a large amount of Soviet-made farm machinery. Now the fleet of Russia-made farm equipment has reduced. We should strengthen cooperation in farming. This is possible, because our countries’ climates are similar. For many years we have discussed the export of Mongolian meat to the Irkutsk Region but progress in tackling the issue is not very fast,” Battulga said.

“Infrastructures and transport in general are another field of our interaction,” he added.

“We’ve got a rich history, and a large portion of it shows us helping each other. The last example is the Battles of Khalkhyn Gol that must not be forgotten. I believe it is important for us to remember it,” he said.

“Improvement of relations and cooperation between Mongolia and the regions of the Russian Federation that have common borders plays a great role in extending cooperation between our countries. Relations and cooperation on the regional level should be taken to new heights,” Battulga noted.

Khaltmaagiin Battulga plans to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum to be held in Vladivostok on September 6-7. “That will be my first official visit abroad,” he told TASS.

“During the visit, meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and heads of state of Northeast Asia are planned. Mongolia’s Foreign Ministry is working on its program and agenda,” he added.

The world's largest e-commerce operator by transaction volume on Thursday reported its revenue jumped by 56 percent to 50.2 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) in the quarter ended June 30 for the fiscal year 2018.

That has beaten an annual revenue guidance frame of 45 percent to 49 percent given by its senior executives in June.

Net income nearly doubled to 14 billion yuan from the same period last year.

"Our technology is driving significant growth across our business and strengthening our position beyond core commerce," said Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba, told an investors' call on Thursday night.

The results represent "a sharp acceleration" for just this quarter, said Piyush Mubayi, an analyst at Goldman Sachs who maintained a buy rating for Alibaba.

Annual active consumers across all Alibaba platforms, including Taobao, the mom-and-pop online marketplace, to business-to-customer site Tmall, surged moderately to 466 million, or around one-third of the Chinese population. Mobile users reached 529 million, up by 22 million over March 2017.

Revenue from core commerce increased 58 percent year-over-year to 43 billion yuan, driven by increased traffic on its business-to-customer marketplace Tmall, as it continued to fend off rivals like JD.com Inc.

Tmall's 49 percent growth in physical goods gross merchandise volume is due to increased traffic led by new users and the effects of personalization and social commerce, said Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu.

The adoption of artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing has started to pay dividends for Alibaba with the advent of uncannily precise product searches, and relevant and holistic product recommendations based on shopping habits.

"Digital media and entertainment and core commerce will continue to create more synergies," she told investors.

The contribution from its international retail revenue is also notable, expanding 136 percent to 2.6 billion yuan thanks to its increased stake in Southeast Asian e-commerce vendor Lazada Group.

Other highlights include a significant 96 percent in cloud computing, with sales reaching 2.4 billion yuan and paying customers hitting 1 million.

Accordingly, the Cabinet instructed D.Oyunkhorol, Minister of Environment and Tourism, Ts.Dashdorj, Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry, and Governor of Ulaanbaatar city to follow “Procedure on Activities to Mine Natural Resources by Micro Mining” and take actions on locating damaged areas.

The Governors of Tsenkher soum of Arkhangai aimag, Buregkhangai soum of Bulgan aimag, Shariin-gol of Darkhan-Uul aimag, Zaamar of Tuv aimag, Yeruu and Khuder soums of Selenge aimag were instructed to forcedly evict individuals and legal entities illegally mining gold in the area.

Concerning the violations of “Rich Munkh” LLC, which has illegally mined gold in Yeruu soum of Selenge aimag and heavily damaged the environment, the related Governors were ordered to resolve in accordance to the law and compensate for the damage caused to the environment.

The ambassador was welcomed by the agency’s Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Director General Metin Mutanoglu and Foreign Languages Editor-in-Chief Mehmet Ozturk.

Mutanoglu briefed the ambassador on the agency’s international operations and its News Academy, which was established in 2011.

The academy holds frequent seminars and provides a number of training schemes, including a War Journalism Certificate Program.

During a presentation Mutanoglu also gave an example of the agency's photojournalism, citing its photo coverage of the violent clashes between hundreds of white nationalists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend.

Anadolu Agency's photograph of the unrest were widely used by the international media.

The pair also discussed boosting and strengthening cooperation between Anadolu Agency and Mongolia’s national news agency.

Ravdan offered to invite Beijing-based Anadolu Agency reporters to operate in Mongolia and provide the local agency with English-language news.

"The accumulation of knowledge between the Mongolian and Turkish peoples is great. Mongols are proud of Turkey’s history," Ravdan said.

"For us, Turkey is an Asian country. People living in Turkey have poor knowledge of Mongolia; we want to establish closer ties," he added.

Ravdan emphasized that Turkey and Mongolia share the same roots and geography and said strengthened cooperation could improve the lack of information about today’s modern Mongolia.

The ambassador added that political relations between the two countries were good but that there was a lack of economic ties.

Mutanoglu said there would be more coverage from Mongolia, which would influence the investment of Turkish businessmen in the country.

As 2019 will mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Mongolia, Mutanoglu said preparations would be made to celebrate the anniversary.

1 - week CBBs
1-week CBB plays an important role in managing the reserves of banks and is the core monetary policy instrument of the Bank of Mongolia. The interest rate on CBB will be the policy rate of the BOM and will serve as a guide interest rate on the interbank market. It was first introduced in July 2007, with fixed rate and unlimited bidding, and traded on a regular basis every Wednesday at the interbank market. This had attracted the banks’ interests providing the possibility for the banks to place their excess reserve in short term asset. Since the introduction of this instrument, there has been a substantial change in the way banks manage their reserves. For the favorable adjustment of CBB rate and loan principle along with the well balance of togrog and foreign exchange, 1 - week CBB auction has been held in the form of competitive interest rate since May 2010. In doing so, the upper and lower limits of the bank bids are to set +/- 2 per cent of the policy rate.

In July of this year, the IPPI increased by 3.9% compared with the previous month change was mainly due to increase of 5.1% in mining and quarrying sub-sector prices (price of mining of coal and lignite, extraction of peat increased by 6.7%, and other mining and quarrying increased by 5.1%).

The project will be overseen by Rosatom’s subsidiary for South Asia Projects ASE.

Russia will take part in the construction of at least two out of six reactors, according to Andrey Lebedev, the vice-president of the company.

The new power station will be 20 kilometers from the Tianwan nuclear power plant. Built in 2006 by Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly owned by Gazprom, it is the biggest joint NPP project between countries.

Two of its units with a capacity of 1,000 MW each were opened in 2007, while the construction of the third and the fourth units is still underway. The countries are reportedly negotiating the possibility of adding seventh and eighth units.

Last year, Beijing and Moscow said they intended further strategic partnerships in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

“The fact China offered Russia to build new nuclear power plants shows that plans for extending cooperation in the sector are moving to practical implementation,” said Aleksandr Uvarov, the chief editor of the AtomInfo web portal, as quoted by RIA Novosti.

The SIF expenditure reached MNT 1.1 trillion, showing an increase by 12.2% against the previous year.
Partially due to increased revenue of pension insurance fund by MNT 151.2 billion and health insurance fund--by MNT 45.4 billion. The SIF revenue increased in the first seven months of 2017 by MNT 231.6 billion compared to the same period of the previous year.

The SIF expenditure increased by MNT 118.1 billion in the first seven months of this year against 2016. The main reason goes to increase in pension insurance fund expenditure by MNT 85.7 billion and health insurance fund by MNT 19.0 billion.