Fastmarkets launched its daily US Midwest Hot-Rolled Coil Index on Monday November 12.Fastmarkets believes that increasing the frequency of its hot-rolled coil index to daily from weekly is a useful and necessary addition to the company's suite of steel and ferrous scrap prices in response to unprecedented steel market volatility. The price proposal notice was updated on&n...Read More
Thank you for joining us in a weekly technical look at the mid-cap oriented INK Canadian Insider (CIN) Index. Last week, the INK Canadian Insider Index continued its prior rally climbing 20 points higher to 1170, before giving up those gains and more. The Index closed at 1133.74 for a loss of 18.21 points or 1.6%. Though it's worth noting part of the decline can be attributed to the heavy 18% los...Read More
China's auto output in October was 10.1% lower than a year ago, leading to annual contractions in output and sales over the first 10 months and causing price drops in upstream steel goods such as cold-rolled coil (CRC).The country's CRC prices in eastern China have been posting weekly drops since August 24. On Friday November 9, CRC prices in this region were between 4,520 and 4,570 yuan ($650-657...Read More
China's hot-rolled coil prices plunged on Monday November 12 after sellers made big cuts to secure bookings.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 3,800-3,830 yuan ($546-550) per tonne, down 100 yuan per tonneNorthern China (Tianjin): 3,820-3,840 yuan per tonne, down 90-100 yuan per tonnePrices plunged by nearly as much as last week's combined losses during the day.Trading remained at moderate levels e...Read More
Prices for special bar quality (SBQ) steel products in the United States have risen again, moving up by $0.50 per hundredweight ($10 per short ton) due to increasing raw material costs while market participants eye an early 2019 mill hike. Fastmarket AMM assessed the price for 1-inch round 1000 series (carbon) hot-rolled bar at $46.50 per cwt ($930 per ton) on Friday November 9, up 16.3% from $40...Read More
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday that there were still considerable unresolved issues with the European Union over Brexit as the two sides approached the “endgame” in negotiations for departure from the bloc.May’s compromise plan, which seeks to maintain close trade ties with the EU in the future, is facing opposition from Brexiteers, pro-Europ...Read More
The rate at which the European Commission's import safeguard quotas for wire rod and rebar are filling up is still accelerating, and may give domestic long steel producers an opportunity to raise their prices in the next few weeks despite lukewarm demand.The European quotas were introduced in mid-July in response to the imposition by the United States of wide-ranging import tariffs on industrial g...Read More
The latest metal markets news and price moves to start the North American day on Monday November 12.Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were mixed during morning trading with nickel, zinc and lead prices pressured by a fresh 2018 high in the US dollar index, while copper and tin futures found support. Here's how base metals prices looked at 11:48am London time:For a snapshot of...Read More
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council is set to vote on Wednesday to lift a nearly decade-old arms embargo and targeted sanctions on Eritrea, diplomats said, after the country's rapprochement with Ethiopia and thawing of relations with Djibouti.Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 15-member council completed negotiations on Monday and agreed on a British...Read More
SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. think tank said on Monday it had identified at least 13 of an estimated 20 undeclared missile operating bases inside North Korea, underscoring the challenge for American negotiators hoping to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.In reports released by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, researcher...Read More
SOFIA (Reuters) - European Central Bank (ECB) will conduct a comprehensive assessment of six Bulgarian banks as part of the Balkan country’s bid to join the European Union’s banking union, Bulgaria’s central bank said on Monday.In July Bulgaria, who joined the EU in 2007, applied to join the banking union, a step toward the Black Sea state’s aim to enter the “waiting...Read More
LONDON (Reuters) - Banks, law firms and other advisers stand to earn up to $963 million in fees from Takeda Pharmaceutical’s (4502.T) $62 billion takeover of drugmaker Shire (SHP.L), according to documents for the deal published on Monday.The deal will be the largest-ever overseas acquisition by a Japanese company and will lead to big payments to advisers working on both sides of the transac...Read More
(Reuters) - San Francisco's city attorney on Monday questioned the recent appointment of a new acting Attorney General, saying in a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice that his office may take court action if DOJ does not provide a legal justification.President Donald Trump last week named Matthew Whitaker to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was forced out after months of at...Read More
The Turkish steel producers have continued to hold back from new bookings in the deep-sea markets for scrap material, while prices were largely stable, sources said on Monday November 12.After booking two cargoes from the United States late last week, Turkish mills paused their purchases and went into wait-and-see mode. The latest transaction from the US included an 80:20 mix of No1 and No2 heavy...Read More
PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - Italy said on Monday it was confident the strongman who rules eastern Libya, Khalifa Haftar, would attend a peace summit, as Italian officials prepared to open the conference with no public sign yet whether Haftar would arrive.Libya’s prime minister, who is based in the west, arrived for the conference, but Haftar, the most powerful man in the east, kept the hosts...Read More
CloseGain/LossGold $1201.50-$8.40Silver$14.01-$0.16XAU62.65-2.36%HUI140.33-2.15%GDM519.17-2.03%JSE Gold1096.10-2.01USD97.59+0.69Euro112.21-1.18Yen87.97-0.06Oil$59.93-$0.2610-Year3.184%-0.006T-Bond138.53125+0.625Dow25387.18-2.32%Nasdaq7200.87-2.78%S&P2726.22-1.97% The Metals: Gold fell $5.90 to $1204.00 in Asia before it rebounded in London, but it then fell to a new sessi...Read More
By Ira EpsteinDollar killer!https://www.iraepstein.com/ Read More
By Ed Steer10 November 2018 -- SaturdayYESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUMThe gold price was sold quietly lower until around noon China Standard Time on their Friday. It crawled quietly higher from there until a few minutes after the London open -- and then it crawled equally quietly lower until the COMEX open. Then the spoofing and algo spinning began -- and the low tick of th...Read More
By Clint SiegnerGold and silver investors got a rare bit of good news on the enforcement front last week.A trader from JPMorgan Chase pled guilty to rigging the precious metals futures markets.John Edmonds admitted to cheating the bank's clients and plenty of other people naive enough to expect fair treatment on the COMEX and other exchanges.While this is by no means the first time a banker has...Read More
Here are two long-term charts illustrating the annual rate at which gold is extracted from the ground. The second of these charts shows why mine production can be ignored when trying to understand what happened to the gold price over the preceding few years or figure out what's likely to happen to the gold price over the next few years.The first chart shows the amount of gold produced by the glo...Read More