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o put the gains for the GDX, referring to the ETFs ticker symbol trading on the NYSE Arca, into perspective, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.25% is up nearly 17% in 2019 so far, the S&P 500 SPX, +0.02% has gained more than 19%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.06% boasts a rich 24% climb over the past seven months.

Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at Forex.com, said that gold has more room to run: "The bulls' next target could be the underside of the rising trend capping the prior highs, which comes in around $1460, with the psychologically-important $1500 hurdle being the subsequent objective," he wrote in a Thursday report.

Gold has benefited from a number of factors but popped in electronic trading late Thursday after New York Fed President John Williams made comments that the market implied as raising the likelihood that the Federal Reserve may take more aggressive action at the end of this month to stave off a tariff-induced slowdown in the economy. "When you only have so much stimulus at your disposal, it pays to act quickly to lower rates at the first sign of economic distress," Williams said at a research conference.

Expectations of a half-percentage-point cut at the Fed's next meeting in two weeks more than doubled to 60% in response. Treasury yields and the US dollar slipped. But then a spokesperson clarified that Williams wasn't making any predictions about the Fed's monetary policy update due in two weeks. Expectations for a half-point cut retreated to 41% on Friday, although that was still more elevated than just two days ago.

In the latest attack on Fed policy, President Donald Trump tweeted that he preferred Williams first statement, calling it "100% correct that the Fed 'raised' far too fast and too early."

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``More than 50 multinational companies are moving production out of China, including Apple, Nintendo and Dell, CNBC previously reported. Companies began announcing in May that they would move from China to Vietnam, as China and the U.S. stepped up tit-for-tat duties.

Brooks Running -- which is part of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway -- said in May it would be "predominantly in Vietnam by the end of the year," adding that about 8,000 jobs will move there from China.

Vietnam! So much better.

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Before his arrest, Shkreli was best known for buying the rights to a lifesaving drug at another company in 2014 and promptly raising the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

Blackstone said it is now re-evaluating what to do with the apartments at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan's Lower East Side new rent regulation laws, Crain's New York Business reports.

While Blackstone plans to proceed with improvements required under law -- such as fixing leaks and hot water improvements -- improvements to the vacant apartments won't continue and large-scale construction improvements may also be stopped, a source told Crain's.

The new rent regulations, signed into law last month, have been met with a barrage of criticism from the real estate industry. The new legislation significantly reduces landlords' ability to increase rents and remove apartments from regulation. 

The vacancy bonus -- a provision that had allowed landlords to increase rents by as much as 20% when a unit became vacant -- has been cut. Landlords who rented a unit for less than they could legally charge are no longer able to raise rents to the full price when leases are renewed.

What a pointless battle! NYC should just streamline the building of affordable-rent (not luxury, or luxury with subsidized units sprinkled-in) market-rate apartments. More welfare is not what is needed to fix the market.

However, the US Federal Reserve wants Facebook to put its foot on the brake until a number of concerns have been addressed.

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"Facebook has a couple billion-plus users, so I think you have for the first time the possibility of very broad adoption," Powell said. "It needs a careful look, so I strongly believe we all need to be taking our time with this."

Singapore, too, has concerns over the Libra project. Earlier this week, officials demanded that Facebook provide a more thorough explanation of Libra in order for the country to decide whether regulators need to investigate the proposal. 

However, Singapore's Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said it is "open" to financial innovation, on the proviso that Facebook does not pose a threat to the local financial ecosystem.

Though the dollar volume represents a jump from the first quarter of the year, much of the total volume is down to Related's $2.6B office condominium purchase at 30 Hudson Yards.

Without that sale, dollar volume for Q2 would have hit the lowest quarterly level in the past nine years...

Total volume for development sites went down 79% to hit $159M across nine sales.

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Players in the real estate industry, many of whom are in a state of shock over the [new tenant-protective and rent regulation] laws, have been sorting through the details of the legislation since it was passed last month. The outlook has remained glum, even with landlord groups planning to try and overturn the laws in federal court, and many brokers fear investors will redirect capital to other parts of the city.