At the start of the Aug 17 evening session on the Shanghai Gold Exchange, gold T+D rose 1.48% to 953.49 yuan/gram and silver T+D rose 2.73% to 16,040 yuan/kg.

The U.S. Treasury will auction $16bn of 20-year notes on Wednesday. Pre-auction trading yield is around 5.27%; if the stop-out holds, it would be the highest since the tenor was reintroduced in 2020. Recent 10-year and 30-year auction stop-out yields were 4.683% and 5.216%, the highest since 2007 and 2001, respectively. High stop-out yields have not implied demand failure—last week's 30-year bid-cover ratio was 2.39. Market-watch items: whether the stop-out exceeds pre-auction trading (a tail), the share of indirect bidders, and the proportion taken by primary dealers. A clear tail and rising dealer uptake would indicate investors are demanding wider fiscal, inflation and term premia and the long end is decoupling from the Fed policy path; if high yields instead attract long-term buyers, it would signal markets are absorbing supply.

Interfax reports Ukrainian drones struck industrial facilities in Russia's Astrakhan region.