The bitcoin rate set a new record on Monday, rising above $109 thousand before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump.
During the election campaign, the politician publicly spoke in support of the cryptocurrency market, and traders expect him to ease regulations in this sector.
On Monday, the price of bitcoin rose to $109,241 thousand, Barron’s writes. According to CoinDesk, as of 10:00 a.m., the rate is $107.617 thousand.
Last weekend, Trump and his wife Melania launched their own cryptocurrencies on the Solana blockchain.
The politician himself introduced his TRUMP memecoin on the X social network and on his own platform, The Truth Social, on Saturday. At one point, the capitalization of this cryptocurrency rose to $15 billion, but fell below $8 billion after the launch of the MELANIA memecoin on Sunday, which diverted some of the funds of crypto investors.
The total number of TRUMP memecoins is limited to 1 billion, with 200 million tokens available initially, according to the official website. 80% of the memecoins are owned by CIC Digital, a subsidiary of the Trump
Organization, as well as Fight Fight Fight Fight LLC (corresponding to the Trump campaign slogan “Fight, fight, fight!”), in which CIC Digital is a co-owner.
CIC Digital used to sell Trump’s NFTs and campaign merchandise.
Nova Poshta, the leader of express shipments in Ukraine, broke the record of 2023 by processing 2.24 million parcels per day on December 23.
The previous record was set by the company on December 18, 2023, when its branches processed 2.012 million parcels in one day.
“Nova Poshta broke the record by accepting an incredible two million two hundred thousand parcels for shipment in one day! What do these figures mean? The fact that the business continues to work, to support and develop the economy of Ukraine,” the company’s co-owner Volodymyr Popereshnyuk wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
He noted that the record was set by all those who use Nova Poshta services, including entrepreneurs whose goods are delivered by the company, despite constant rocket attacks, deteriorating business conditions, tax increases, and regulatory pressure.
Nova Poshta clarified that the parcels contained mostly clothing, household goods, and decorative cosmetics.
The number of foreign tourists who visited Spain in October increased by 9.5% year-on-year to 8.96 million people, according to the national statistics office INE.
This is a record figure for October in the entire history of observations, that is, since 1995.
Most of the tourists came from the UK last month – 1.79 million (+4.8% compared to October 2023), followed by Germany (1.3 million, +14% yoy), and France (1.16 million, +16.7% yoy).
The number of visitors from other European countries increased by 14.7% to 817.28 thousand people.
In October, 7.49 million tourists arrived in Spain by air (+7.8% yoy), 1.19 million by road (+17.7%), 265.48 thousand by water (+30.7%), and 27.18 thousand by rail (-2.5%).
Catalonia received the largest number of tourists (20.4% of the total), followed by the Balearic Islands (17.8%) and Andalusia (15.3%).
Total expenditures by visitors to the country increased by 15.5% year-on-year to 11.9 billion euros, or an average of 1,327 thousand euros per person. Tourism accounts for 12-13% of Spanish GDP.
In January-October, tourist arrivals to Spain increased by 10.8% to approximately 82.9 million people.
In 2023-2024 marketing year, Ukraine processed a record 17.4 mln tons of major types of oilseeds, including 14.8 mln tons of sunflower, 1.6 mln tons of soybeans and one million tons of rapeseed, according to the industry association Ukroliyaprom.
“The production and export volumes of sunflower oil not only reached but exceeded some pre-war periods. (…) The increase in sunflower oil production was facilitated by significant processing of sunflower seeds at domestic facilities due to a significant reduction in exports, which decreased by 83.4% or 1.5 million tons,” analysts said.
According to their information, in 2023/2024 MY the total volume of sunflower seeds crushed into oil was 14.8 mln tonnes, up 1.3 mln tonnes compared to the previous year.
At the same time, the production and export volumes of sunflower oil amounted to 6.6 mln tonnes and 6.2 mln tonnes, respectively, which was the second result in the industry’s history. Compared to the pre-war 2020/2021 MY, the production and export volumes of sunflower oil in 2023/2024 MY increased by 13.7% and 17%, respectively.
Ukroliyaprom noted that for the first time since independence, Ukraine processed 1.0 mln tons of rapeseed, which accounted for 22.3% of the total harvest in 2023. The production of rapeseed oil reached a record high of 430 thsd tonnes for Ukraine.
This is 0.8 mln tonnes more than in the previous periods, despite the fact that rapeseed is considered to be the main export-oriented agricultural raw material, the industry association said, adding that the export of rapeseed oil in 2023/24 MY reached the record level of over 424 thsd tonnes.
Ukroliyaprom pointed to the continued growth of soybean and meal oil production and exports by 22% and 29%, respectively.
Gold continues to rise in price and break records on the back of a weaker US dollar and on expectations of a significant interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve this week. Based on futures quotes on the rate level, the probability of its reduction by 50 basis points (bps) by the Federal Reserve is estimated by the market at 67% compared to 25% a month ago, according to CME FedWatch.
In addition, demand for gold as a safe-haven asset has intensified following the second assassination attempt on U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump last weekend, Trading Economics noted.
“A fragmented world laden with geopolitical risks and debt will continue to support the price” of gold, notes Ole Hansen, head of commodities strategy at Saxo Bank.
Analysts Goldman Sachs confirmed their forecast, according to which the precious metal may rise to $ 2700 per ounce in early 2025 due to lower interest rates in the U.S. and increased demand for gold from the Central Bank of emerging market countries. However, they noted that if the Fed raises the rate by only 25 bp, prices for precious metal may show a short-term pullback, Bloomberg reports.
Experts of the Australian bank ANZ also expect prices to rise to $2700 per ounce in the near future.
Quotes of October gold futures on the Comex exchange are now $2588.7 per ounce, which is $3.5 (0.1%) above the level at the close of the previous session. Since the beginning of this year, the precious metal has risen in price by more than a quarter.
IMC Agro Holding has completed harvesting winter wheat from 20.2 thousand hectares and harvested 139.8 thousand tons with an average yield of 6.9 t/ha, which is the second best result in the history of the company and 60% higher than the average wheat yield in Ukraine, the company’s press service reported on its Facebook page.
According to the report, the agricultural holding is satisfied with the results, as most of the harvested winter crops meet the quality parameters of milling wheat.
“Last fall’s weather conditions were favorable for timely sowing, good germination and tillering of winter wheat. This spring, we carried out fertilization and plant protection against weeds, diseases and pests in accordance with the technological map. All operations were completed on time according to the crop development stages and weather conditions,” said IMC Production Director Mykola Pylypenko.
He noted that the agroholding started wheat harvesting earlier than usual due to the lack of precipitation needed for optimal plant development in the Poltava cluster. This led to a slight decrease in yields and an early start of the harvest in Poltava region.
“In other regions of the company, Chernihiv and Sumy, weather conditions were more favorable, and we significantly exceeded our targets for yield and gross production of winter wheat,” summarized Pylypenko.
“IMC is an integrated group of companies operating in Sumy, Poltava and Chernihiv regions (north and center of Ukraine) in the crop production, elevators and warehouses segments. The land bank is about 120 thousand hectares, storage capacity is 554 thousand tons, with a 2023 harvest of 1.002 million tons.
In 2023, IMC posted a net loss of $21.03 million compared to $1.12 million a year earlier, and its EBITDA decreased 11.3 times to $3.22 million. The holding’s revenue increased by 22.3% to $139.45 million, while the share of exports decreased to 68% from 73% a year earlier.
