(Kitco News) - Gold and silver prices are sharply lower in midday U.S. trading Monday, on heavy profit-taking from the shorter-term futures traders after recent good price advances. The selling pressure today across most of the raw commodity spectrum is also keeping the precious metals bulls on the sidelines to start the trading week. August gold was last down $37.50 at $2,360.10. September silver was down $0.849 at $30.85. U.S. stock indexes mixed but near their record highs scored last week. The rallying stock market is a bearish element for the gold and silver markets, from a competing asset class perspective. The key U.S. data points of the week include Fed Chairman Powell’s speeches to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the consumer and producer price indexes on Thursday and Friday, respectively. The key outside markets today see the U.S. dollar index slightly higher. Nymex crude oil prices are lower and trading around $82.25 a barrel. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note yield is presently 4.288%. Technically, August gold bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage. Bulls’ next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at the June high of $2,406.70. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $2,300.00. First resistance is seen at $2,382.60 and then at $2,400070. First support is seen at $2,350.00 and then at last week’s low of $2,327.40. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.0. September silver futures bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at the May high of $33.05. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at the June low of $28.90. First resistance is seen at $31.00 and then at $31.50. Next support is seen at Friday’s low of $30.45 and then at $30.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.5. (Hey! My “Markets Front Burner” weekly email report is my best writing and analysis, I think, because I get to look ahead at the marketplace and do some market price forecasting. Plus, I’ll throw in an educational feature to move you up the ladder of trading/investing success. And it’s free! Email me at jim@jimwyckoff.com and I’ll add your email address to my Front Burner list.)

Iran's President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated Iran's anti-Israel stance on Monday, saying resistance movements across the region will not allow Israel's "criminal policies" against Palestinians to continue. Pezeshkian told Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, that "the Islamic Republic will always support the people of the region in their resistance against the illegal Zionist regime." This suggests that the incoming government will not change its regional policy under the relatively moderate Pezeshkian, who defeated his hard-line opponent in a runoff election last week. Pezeshkian was quoted as saying by Iranian media, "I am sure that the regional resistance movement will not allow this regime to continue its militant and criminal policies against the oppressed people of Palestine and other countries in the region." The Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and the Palestinian Sunni Muslim Hamas are both part of the local "resistance axis" faction organization supported by Iran. Israel did not immediately comment on Pezeshkian's speech. Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7. According to Israeli statistics, Hamas killed 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 hostages, triggering the Israeli-Palestinian war. The Gaza Health Ministry said that the Israeli military attack killed more than 38,000 Palestinians and injured nearly 88,000 people.

As a major city in the United States and even the global film industry, Hollywood has gathered a large number of veteran film and television production companies, including Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Disney Pictures, MGM Pictures, etc. In addition, new streaming forces such as Netflix have also entered in recent years. When the new generation of technology represented by generative AI sweeps the world, the movie "dream factory" is also experiencing a transformative moment. In early May last year, the US film and television industry launched a series of strikes that lasted for five months. Two labor disputes, led by the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild, have caused the worst industry disruption since the 2020 pandemic, forcing many film projects and TV shows to halt or delay production. The strike has been costly, with Kevin Klowden, chief global strategist at the Milken Institute think tank, estimating it has cost the U.S. economy more than $5 billion, affecting not only film and television production companies, but also surrounding service industries such as catering, trucking and dry cleaning. One of the main conflicts between labor and management is that many actors and screenwriters have expressed concerns about "unemployment" due to the "invasion" of artificial intelligence. Luo Chenya has been working in the film and television industry for more than 10 years, including scriptwriter, documentary photographer and assistant director. She told the first financial reporter that after ChatGPT became popular, she also tried to use chatbots to assist script creation. "I can talk to the AI about my ideas and ideas, and it will help analyze and refine my ideas, and even make some suggestions that I think are quite effective." But on the execution level, the idea of writing it down into a very specific scene, character action, it doesn't really help me." Luo Chenya said that AI still needs more training and evolution in script writing, but the ability to present images is amazing. "AI can directly generate images, which can indeed save labor to a great extent, and may even replace photographers in the future." In post-production, AI can beautify images and modify flaws." A place to be fought over Earlier this year, OpenAI released the Vincennes video model Sora on its website, which can create videos up to a minute long, generating complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of movement, and precise theme and background details. In addition to being able to generate video from text, the model can also generate video from still images, precisely animating the image content. "Vincennes Video can quickly produce high-quality video content, greatly improving production efficiency, and generative AI helps to improve the analysis of user preferences and personalized recommendations, and enhance the attractiveness of content." These technologies will disrupt traditional video production and content distribution models, and media companies need to adapt and change their operating models." Wang Haoyu, CEO of Mairui Asset Management, said in an interview with the first financial reporter. For this reason, Hollywood giants have long made big bets and stepped up their layout.

In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found a desert moss species, known as Syntrichia caninervis, that has the potential to survive in the extreme conditions on Mars. The Global Times learned from the institute that during the third Xinjiang scientific expedition, the research team focused on studying the desert moss and found that it not only challenges people's understanding of the tolerance of organisms in extreme environments, but also demonstrates the ability to survive and regenerate under simulated Martian conditions. Supported by the Xinjiang scientific expedition project, researchers Li Xiaoshuang, Zhang Daoyuan and Zhang Yuanming from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography and Kuang Tingyun, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, concentrated on studying the "pioneer species" Syntrichia caninervis in an extreme desert environment, according to the institute in an article it sent to the Global Times on Sunday. Through scientific experiments, the researchers systematically proved that the moss can tolerate over 98 percent cell dehydration, survive at temperatures as low as -196 C without dying, withstand over 5000Gy of gamma radiation without perishing, and quickly recover, turn green, and resume growth, showcasing extraordinary resilience. These findings push the boundaries of human knowledge on the tolerance of organisms in extreme environments. Furthermore, the research revealed that under simulated Martian conditions with multiple adversities, Syntrichia caninervis can still survive and regenerate when returned to suitable conditions. This marks the first report of higher plants surviving under simulated Martian conditions. The research team also identified unique characteristics of Syntrichia caninervis. Its overlapping leaves reduce water evaporation, while the white tips of the leaves reflect intense sunlight. Additionally, the innovative "top-down" water absorption mode of the white tips efficiently collects and transports water from the atmosphere. Moreover, the moss can enter a selective metabolic dormancy state in adverse environments and rapidly provide the energy needed for recovery when its surrounding environment improves. Based on the extreme environmental tolerance of Syntrichia caninervis, the research team plans to conduct experiments on spacecraft to monitor the survival response and adaptation capabilities of the species under microgravity and various ionizing radiation adversities. They aim to unravel the physiological and molecular basis of the moss and explore the key life tolerance regulatory mechanisms, laying the foundation for future applications of Syntrichia caninervis in outer space colonization.

After Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a video on his Facebook and Instagram accounts of his free time during the Independence Day holiday on the X platform, Musk said, "I prefer to work." Zuckerberg posted a video of himself surfing on a hydrofoil in a tuxedo, waving an American flag and drinking a beer, and wrote: "Happy birthday America." The video quickly went viral, and after greg shared it on the X platform, Musk replied: "I hope he continues to have fun on the yacht." I prefer to work." Musk, a workaholic, attended the 29th annual Barron Investment Conference in November 2022, where he said: "My workload went from 78 hours a week to 120 hours a week..." In 2018, he slept on the floor of the Gigafactory in Fremont in an effort to ramp up production of the Tesla Model 3.