Gold has big year in 2020 and outlook for this year robust. Learn about monetary expansion and gold future prices.Read More
The gold futures price reached US$1,767/ounce this week before retreating, which was the second time it has surpassed US$1,760 in the past two months, marking some of gold's highest levels in several years.Read More
Oil prices rose again on Tuesday,approaching multi-year highs amid concerns over steadily shrinking US crudereserves.FundamentalAnalysis U.S. API Weekly Crude Oil Stock: Inventory levels of US crude oil, gasoline and distillates stocks, AmericanPetroleum Institute (API) via InvestingRegarding the API figures publishedTuesday, the increase in crude inventories (with 2.318 million barrels versus1.65...Read More
Precious metals expert Michael Ballanger delves into the Federal Reserve's actions going back decades that affect the price of gold.One of the benefits (or luxuries) of being removed from the commuting rat-race of my earlier life is the ability to devote large swaths of free time to reading – to the acquisition of either new sources of knowledge or new frameworks of opinion, neither of which...Read More
The north China steel production hub of Handan city in Hebei province has implemented stricter production cuts at steel mills from Monday November 1 to November 7.The move has been made is to mitigate weather-influenced air pollution over the period and comes just after the city finished implmenting steel production curbs in September and October to limit the crude steel output in line with China'...Read More
Thanksgiving is a time to appreciate the food on our tables, but that probably isn’t stopping a lot of people from grumbling about how expensive the turkey and all the fixings have become.According to Statistics Canada, food prices are up 2.5% over the past year, but that may be underestimating the impact of inflation. New research from Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, q...Read More
Eurofer has welcomed the agreement between the European Union and the United States to replace Section 232 steel and aluminium tariffs against the bloc's 27 countries with tariff-rate quotas, the European steel association said on Monday November 1.The US authorities made theannouncement, on Saturday October 30."We welcome the announcement of the agreement which could be the starting point of a ne...Read More
With the S&P 500 back at itsall-time highs, gold stopped lagging behind. However, how long can thisunsustainable growth last?TheFOMO Rally While the S&P500 has demonstrated a resounding ability to shake off bad news, anepic divergence has developed between positioning and economic expectations.And while ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) keeps sentiment near the high-end of itsrange,...Read More
Evergrande is on the brink of bankruptcy. Will gold prices collapse together with the real estate developer or benefit from its default?Generals are always prepared to fight the last war, while economists are always prepared to fight the last recession. But what if the next economic crisis doesn’t start in the US financial sector, but in China’s real estate?Naturally, I refer to Evergr...Read More
An overview of the specialty steel raw materials markets in Europe and their latest price moves.Alex Cook, Dalila Ouerghi...Read More
Europe's domestic prices for heavy plate rose sharply in the week to Wednesday November 3 due to strong demand and surging production costs, sources told Fastmarkets.Energy prices have increased substantially across Europe, adding pressure on steel prices. A number of producers that have long-term agreements for electricity will have to renegotiate new contracts starting in January 2022, sources s...Read More
The gold miners’ latestquarterly earnings season will soon get underway, with their full Q3’21 resultsdue out by mid-November. These fundamentalreports are invaluable to traders, revealing how companies are actually faringoperationally and financially. Despite Fed-tighteningfears hammering gold and gold stocks last quarter, the miners are likely to collectivelyreport outsta...Read More
The price of steel hollow sections in Europe moved down on Wednesday November 3, with the market seeking the floor after recent price drops, sources have told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets' price assessment for steel sections (medium) domestic, delivered Northern Europe was ?,?1,150- 1,250 ($1,333-1,449) per tonne on Wednesday, down from ?,?1,230-1,275 per tonne one week previous.Market sources hav...Read More
You see, there is all this noise out there. It comes mostly from inflationists touting gold in the same breath as copper, as oil, and as commodities of all flavors (and aside from gold and to a degree, silver, those flavors are cyclical).But you also see, gold is counter-cyclical in its best suit. You see on this monthly chart that gold has been forming its Handle to the bullish Cup ever since the...Read More
Kickingthe can down the road is the new national pastime. Every time the government’sbills come due, officials at the Treasury Department find creative ways ofpaying them with money they don’t have.Onemeasure of just how overextended the United States has become financially isthe debt to GDP ratio. For most of the country’s history, excluding temporarywartime blips, net general g...Read More
Steel prices in the United States are poised to continue decreasing at a slow pace in the coming months, Luxembourg-based steelmaker Ternium said on Wednesday November 3.Supply and demand fundamentals have started to normalize in the country, but remain far from balance, according to Ternium chief executive officer M??ximo Vedoya.Among the drivers for lower prices, the CEO cited capacity usage in...Read More
Inflation accelerated again in September, and gold prices (finally!) reacted positively. Bad news: the rally was short-lived.Unfortunately, I was right. One month ago, when commenting on the CPI readings for August, I wrote that inflation “doesn’t have to go away anytime soon” and that the economic developments suggest that “inflation isn’t disappearing just yet.&rdqu...Read More
“Gold going nowhere” seems to be a reasonable description of recent price action in the metals markets.Below is a daily chart of GLD for the past year… The price variation from the mid-point (170) of the price range (160-180) is only about 5 1/2 percent – either up or down.For those expecting bigger things, this might trigger some impatience. It might also be disappointin...Read More
What’s the price level exit for theblack gold?The new front month contract (as weswitched now to Dec’21) for WTI Crude Oil futures closed the week at $82 perbarrel on Friday (Oct. 15th).Fundamentally, nothing seems to be able to stop, in the short term, the surge incrude oil prices which continued to rise on Friday amid concerns over supply,since the WTI hit a new high in almost seven...Read More
Mining stocks were picked up byinvestors in the latest bullish wave. But these bad performers may be dumpedjust as quickly as they were bought.After the HUIIndex rallied back above the neckline of its bearish head &shoulders pattern, a new bull market for mining stocks has finally begun. Or has it? Well, after an identicaldevelopment occurred in 2000, the HUI Index soon invalidated the breakou...Read More
Duncan Wanbladwill take over as Anglo American's chief executive officer when current incumbent Mark Cutifani retires and steps down at the company's annual general meeting on April 19, 2022.Wanblad will also become an executive director of the board at the diversified mining giant. Cutifani, who has been CEO for nine years, will be involved in a transition period, which is expected...Read More
Abig week for precious metals markets as inflation pressures push consumer prices to painful new heights.OnThursday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that inflation at the wholesalelevel is up 8.6% from a year ago. That’s the steepest annual advance since thedata started being reported.Ofcourse, Americans who have shopped at a grocery store recently or tried to rentor buy a car don’t...Read More