China had yesterday announced a range of US goods to be exempted from the 25% extra tariffs put in place last year, Bloomberg noted.

The US has followed suit, with president Donald Trump agreeing to a tariff delay several hours ago.

"At the request of the Vice Premier of China, Liu He, and due to the fact that the People's Republic of China will be celebrating their 70th Anniversary on October 1st, we have agreed, as a gesture of goodwill, to move the increased tariffs on US$250 billion worth of goods (25% to 30%), from October 1st to October 15th," Trump tweeted.

Metals and mining stocks managed an overall gain of 0.65% in Toronto yesterday, with many juniors in the spotlight at this week's Beaver Creek Precious Metals Summit.

Australia's metals and mining sector was just in positive territory at the time of writing, with BHP (ASX: BHP) off about 0.2%.

The gold price has dipped further, to US$1,493 an ounce on the spot market.

Investors are awaiting what has been dubbed "a potentially pivotal" European Central Bank policy meeting, while the US Federal Reserve is set to meet again next week.

Meanwhile, Trump has called on the Federal Reserve to "get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt".