The price of gold continues to rise rapidly on global markets: December futures on the Comex exchange rose to $3,965 per troy ounce on Monday, a new historic high. Since the beginning of the year, gold has risen in price by almost one and a half times.
The main drivers of growth were increased demand for safe-haven assets and political instability in the US and Europe.
In Washington, federal agencies have been shut down for six days now, as Congress has been unable to approve a temporary budget. Against this backdrop, investors are pulling their money out of stocks and bonds and putting it into gold, which they see as a safer bet in times of crisis.
Adding to the nervousness is the political crisis in France: Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned after criticism of the composition of the new cabinet, causing another surge of volatility in European markets.
“We see both fundamental and situational factors for a further rally in gold. If current conditions persist, the price could reach $4,200 per ounce by the end of the year,” UBS analysts predict.
According to experts, if political uncertainty in the US and the EU persists, gold could consolidate above the $4,000 mark.
Earlier, the Experts Club analytical center presented an analysis of the world’s leading gold-producing countries in its video on YouTube — https://youtube.com/shorts/DWbzJ1e2tJc?si=9YBue5CS6dz-tA6_
In the first half of August 2025, Ukraine increased its imports of dairy products to $14.7 million, the highest figure since the beginning of the year for similar periods. The previous record was set in the first half of March, six months ago, at $13.2 million, according to the Ukrainian Dairy Industry Association (UDIA).
The industry association noted that in monetary terms, imports increased by 30% compared to the first half of July and almost one and a half times compared to the first half of June.
In addition, in real terms, growth was recorded for almost all commodity items, except for whey, imports of which fell by a third. The largest increase, 25%, was observed in the cheese group: more than 1.8 thousand tons of this product were imported into the country. This commodity item accounts for the lion’s share of the value structure of imports (almost 85%).
As a result, the balance of exports and imports of dairy products became negative for the first time since March, at $(-4.3) million.
Analysts believe that such a significant increase in imports was largely due to the rise in domestic prices for raw milk in Ukraine, which occurred in the second half of July (+5%) and continued in August. This partially reduced the competitiveness of domestic products, making imports more attractive.
“Such dynamics affect the country’s balance of payments and require a balanced approach to pricing in the domestic dairy products market,” the SMPU concluded.
Agro-Region agricultural holding has completed the harvest of winter crops with yields exceeding the planned targets and the average yield for the last five years, the holding’s press service reported on Facebook.
According to the report, the agricultural holding threshed more than 12.5 thousand hectares, with an average yield of winter wheat across the group of companies at 6.3 tons/ha and winter rapeseed at 3.23 tons/ha. At the same time, three clusters achieved an average winter wheat yield of over 7.5 tons/ha.
“The end of the growing season for winter wheat and the filling period were favorable, as a result of which a yield of 9-9.5 tons/ha was achieved on a significant number of fields,” said Chief Agronomist Yuriy Lysak.
At the same time, the Western cluster had the highest yield of winter rapeseed — 3.71 tons/ha.
“The rapeseed crops were damaged by frost, and the crop needed time to recover. Overall, the year was cooler than last year, so we started threshing later,” Lysak added.
Agro-Region specified that in the 2025 season, the harvest started two weeks later due to weather conditions. All of the company’s clusters made maximum use of their own equipment, which has been updated in recent years.
Agro-Region has a land bank of 39,000 hectares in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, and Khmelnytskyi regions. It specializes in crop production. It comprises 11 companies grouped into four crop clusters. It has two elevators: one in Boryspil with a capacity of 73,000 tons and one in Myropil with a capacity of 52,000 tons.
Agro-Region’s annual harvest of grain and oilseeds is 200,000 tons.
In April 2021, the Swedish company Lobiu Sala AB, owned by former Ukrainian Minister of Economy Aivaras Abromavičius, received permission from the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine to purchase the Swedish company Agro Region Stockholm Holding, which manages the Agro-Region group of companies in Ukraine.
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.
