Central banks bought a net 41 tonnes of gold in May 2026, led by Poland’s 18 tonnes and China’s 10 tonnes, with China now holding 2,331 tonnes and 89% of surveyed reserve managers expecting global official gold holdings to rise further. In China’s domestic market, the Huaan Yifu Gold ETF has become the country’s largest ETF at about 90 billion yuan, overtaking the Huatai-PineBridge CSI 300 equity fund on 83 billion amid weak equities and constrained capital outflows. In London, Citi has joined HSBC, ICBC Standard Bank, JPMorgan and UBS as the fifth clearing member of London Precious Metals Clearing Limited, gaining Loco London settlement access to the roughly $160‑billion‑a‑day OTC bullion market.

Molybdenum’s price surge to about $65,500/t in May 2026, nearly $30/lb and up 48.9% year-on-year, signals a shift from simple by-product tightness to a security premium on alloying metals as China’s February 2025 export controls on tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, indium and molybdenum inject licensing risk into defence, aerospace and tooling supply chains. Partial substitution away from tungsten via molybdenum carbides, Mo-bearing steels and superalloys is driving small absolute but material demand gains in a roughly 300,000 t/y market, where supply is constrained by copper mine plans. Chile and Peru already export about US$2.48 billion and US$1.65 billion of molybdenum respectively, with higher prices materially improving copper by-product credits and project economics.

New drilling at Dakota Gold’s Richmond Hill project in South Dakota has returned high-grade intercepts inside the planned open pit, including 26 metres at 11.36 g/t gold and 14.92 g/t silver from ~75 metres in hole RH26C-432 and 38 metres at 2.89 g/t gold and 8.18 g/t silver from ~145 metres in RH26C-437. The 2026 programme totalled 17,273 metres across 112 infill, expansion and geotechnical holes, with assays from 350+ holes feeding a prefeasibility study due by 31 December and long-lead items such as an electrical substation already queued with Black Hills Energy. Richmond Hill, a large oxide gold system amenable to open-pit and heap leach, carries 244.7 Mt measured and indicated at 0.46 g/t Au and 4.83 g/t Ag (3.6 Moz Au, 38 Moz Ag), with an S-K 1300 Initial Assessment outlining 2.6–3.9 Moz Au production over 28 years and a post-tax NPV of $1.6–2.1 billion at a 55–59% IRR.