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

When Kate Smits was an engineering student at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, she struggled to find a mentor.She had great professors and a great experience overall. But she never found that mentor, that female engineer she could look to and say, "Hey, there's someone who looks like me. I want to be like that."What she did find, though, is a passion for STEM education and breaking...Read More

The wrong people - rebels, outsiders, nerds and techies - got on the cryptocurrency boat while their insider/rentier “betters” blew it and are now raging bitterly onshore, watching the crypto boat sail away.The psychology of money, wealth and speculative manias is endlessly fascinating. Most of what’s written on these subjects focus on the process of building wealth as if it were...Read More

A group of Colorado School of Mines students traveled to Nepal over winter break to help build foot trails in the Mt. Everest region, and their service trip was featured in The Himalayan Times, an English-language newspaper in Nepal. The volunteers with Hike for Help Nepal also delivered about 400 pairs of shoes to low-income families in the area.Read More

I'm calling 2018 "The Year of Living Dangerously."That description might seem odd to lot of observers. Major U.S. stock indexes keep hitting new all-time highs. 2017 went down as the first calendar year in which the Dow Jones industrial average was up for all 12 months.Even in strong bull market years there are usually one or two down months as stocks take a breather on the way higher. Not last ye...Read More

A Los Angeles Times article about the Trump administration's plans to open coastal California waters to expanded drilling featured an interview with Peter Maniloff, assistant professor of economics and business at Colorado School of Mines.From the story:Oil is trading at about $60 a barrel - roughly the price that would make an offshore project profitable, said Peter Maniloff, an economist at Colo...Read More

Dear Reader,My regular readers are familiar with my use of the "snowflake and avalanche" metaphor.Avalanches emerge from unstable snowpacks on mountain slopes. The snowpacks resemble complex dynamic systems because each snowflake exists in a densely connected network with all of the others.When new snow comes, a single snowflake can land in such a way as to disturb some others, create a slide that...Read More

Turkish domestic scrap prices increased in line with rising imported scrap values on Monday January 8.The majority of Turkish steel producers raised their auto bundle (DKP grade) scrap purchasing prices over the past week.Alloy long steel mill Asil ??elik raised its buy price to TRY1,370 ($366) per tonne delivered, while long and flat steel producer ??olakoglu increased its price to TRY1,340...Read More

Comex copper prices recovered from a one-week low amid consolidation on Monday January 8, while a stronger dollar is likely to cap the upside. Copper for March settlement on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 1.25 cents or 0.4% to $3.2420 per lb. Last week, the contract hit the lowest point since December 22. "Prices could look to resume their upward...Read More

Production of aluminium at Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) reached a new record high in 2017 despite operational challenges last year. The company produced 981,016 tonnes in 2017, an increase of 1% from the previous year, the company said on Monday January 8. This is the sixth consecutive annual increase and represents...Read More

The London Metal Exchange has approved Amsterdam as a delivery point for primary aluminium, aluminium alloy, lead, nickel, tin and zinc, the exchange said on Monday January 8. Amsterdam will become an active delivery point...Read More

The latest metal markets news and price moves to start the North American day on Monday January 8.Lead and zinc began the week slightly higher while the rest of the base metals on the London Metal Exchange came under pressure this morning. Zinc was Monday morning's best performer, up $13 to $3,365 per tonne. Aluminium, meanwhile, continued to slip marginally lower, down $12 to $2,193.50 per tonne....Read More

Arbitrage for copper, aluminium, zinc and nickel imported into China on Monday January 8*Copper -$100.90 (-655.98 yuan) Aluminium -$458.49 (-2,980.71 yuan) Zinc -$162.12 (-1,054.00 yuan) Nickel -$530.55 (-3,449.21 yuan) *The physical arbitrage numbers are calculated daily...Read More

The strike action at Empresa Nacional de Mineria's (Enami's) copper smelter in Chile has ended, Metal Bulletin understands.The resolution comes after 90% of workers from the Union Sindicato No 2 at Enami's Paipote smelter (Fundici??n Hern??n Videla Lira) voted in...Read More

Brazilian long steel import volumes dropped by 23.40% year-on-year in 2017, due to reduced shipments from China.The country imported 197,827 tonnes of non-alloy long steel products last year, down from 258,270 tonnes in 2016,...Read More

The Turkish Steel Producers' Association (T???oeD) is worried that the country's imports of rebar and hot-rolled coil (HRC) will increase because of cuts to import duties, it said on Monday January 8.The 10% import duty on rebar was removed completely on January 1 and the duty on HRC was reduced to 3.5%...Read More

Tata Steel expects its steel sales volumes to have moved up in both India and Europe in the quarter ending December 31 2017, the company said in a preliminary results announcement on Friday January 5.The company's sales in India are expected to have increased by 10.37% year-on-year to 3.30 million tonnes in the last three months of 2017. The company said the improvement is due to stronge...Read More

Import prices for rebar in Singapore have increased following end-users' return to the spot market after the year-end holiday season.Metal Bulletin's price assessment for Southeast Asian rebar imports - which mainly looks at cargoes sold into Singapore on a theoretical weight basis - was $570-580 per tonne cfr for the week to Monday January 8, up $10-15 per tonne from the previous week. Bids had i...Read More

Import prices for steel billet in Southeast Asia nudged up slightly as trading activity picked up after the end-of-year lull in trading activity.Metal Bulletin's weekly assessment for billet imports in Southeast Asia was $535-545 per tonne cfr on Monday January 8, up $5 per tonne from $530-540.China-origin billet was being offered at $520-530 fob China to Asian import markets, with buyer...Read More

Import prices for re-rolling grade hot-rolled coil into Vietnam were higher in the week ended Monday January 8 as spot discussions resumed at higher levels.Metal Bulletin's assessment of HRC import prices in Southeast Asia - which mainly looks at Chinese 2-3mm SAE1006 HRC and equivalent grades sold into Vietnam - was $570-580 per tonne cfr, up $5 per tonne from a week earlier.End-users were lookin...Read More

China's ferrous futures prices turned around to surge late in the afternoon on Monday, January 8 after the country's officials declared stricter steel capacity replacement criteria to be implemented from this year.The production facilities that will be allowed to have capacity replaced will only include those recorded in capacity replacement plans approved by local or central governments...Read More