Driving through central Florida this week, I was pretty bummed out.I remember, many years ago, driving through this part of the state as a kid.My folks would always stop at the same roadside stands where families of Vietnamese farmers sold fresh oranges and grapefruits. They were so delicious and gave us something to eat during those hour-long treks through little more than flat grasslands and ora...Read More
Fastmarkets has identified seven main takeaways on the lithium market from Fastmarkets' 11th Lithium Supply and Markets Conference in Santiago last week.1. New investments are keyA scarcity of capital in the lithium sector is a concern for many market participants given the expected growth of downstream demand.Although consumption of lithium carbonate equivalent consumption is on track to reach 1...Read More
China's hot-rolled coil prices were stable on Thursday June 20 amid a pick-up in sentiment following futures gains and more expensive iron ore,even though downstream demand has not shown any significant improvement.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 3,770-3,780 yuan ($546-547) per tonne, unchangedNorthern China (Tianjin): 3,760-3,780 yuan per tonne, widening upward 10 yuan per tonnePrices...Read More
Brazilian apparent steel consumption soared by 28.2% year on year in May, national steel association A??o Brasil said on Wednesday June 19.The country's steel use came to 1.74 million tonnes last month compared with 1.36 million tonnes in May 2018, according to the association. In May 2018, the Brazilian steel market was affected by a truckers' strike, which resulted in production constraints...Read More
Declining ferrous scrap costs combined with continued slow demand have worked to bring US steel reinforcing bar prices to their lowest levels in nearly 15 months. Fastmarkets AMM's biweekly price assessment for US domestic rebar fell to $32.50-33.50 per hundredweight ($650-670 per short ton) fob mill on Wednesday June 19, down by 2.2% from $33.50-34 per cwt two weeks ago. The assessment last...Read More
Turkish domestic rebar and wire rod prices have weakened in line with the falling imported scrap values and limited demand over the past week, sources said on Thursday June 20.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for domestic rebar in Turkey was TRY3,160-3,190 ($542-547) per tonne ex-works, down from last week's TRY3,200-3,220 per tonne,...Read More
The need for flexible sourcing of direct-reduced iron (DRI) production feedstock will continue over the next three to five years, market participants said at Fastmarkets' 7th World DRI and Pellet Congress in Dubai this week.Steel mills in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region are using alternative DRI feedstock such as [lower iron content] blast furnace-grade (BF) pellet and lump iron ore...Read More
* Copper touches highest since May 21 * GRAPHIC-2019 asset returns: (Updates with closing prices)By Eric OnstadLONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - Nickel and other base metalsmarched higher on Thursday after the U.S. central bank signalledrate cuts and investors hoped that the economy of top metalsconsumer China would recover.Both nickel and copper touched the highest levels in morethan three weeks, partl...Read More
Metals trader Trafigura has refuted claims from Iceberg Research, the analytics outfit that launched an explosive campaign against Noble Group, that it has overvalued "hundreds of millions [of dollars] in debt securities issued by an associate."Iceberg's claims - made in a report published on Wednesday June 19 - center on Trafigura's valuation of debt securities linked to its Porto Sudeste asset,...Read More
Steel producers in Turkey passed the day without any deep-sea bookings while they digested falling prices, sources said on Thursday June 20.After booking a US cargo at lower prices on Wednesday June 19, the mills went quiet in the deep-sea markets.A steel mill in the Iskenderun region had booked the US cargo comprising 18,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $278.50 per tonne and 7,000 tonnes...Read More
- Gary ChristensonMost of us understand "there's no free lunch." Someone must pay for the products and services we use. The acronym is TANSTAAFL, or "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." The saying has been around for decades, even prior to Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is A Harsh Mistress."Our morning coffee is an example. Coffee beans were planted, grown, harvested, roasted, transported...Read More
-Gary TanashianIt's not a chart of nominal HUI with upside technical targets. We'll do that in NFTRH this weekend, along with the usual individual miners. Rather, it's a companion to other charts we've been reviewing over the last several months showing the under valuation of the gold stock sector relative to gold's performance vs. cyclical assets/markets. For example, gold has risen strongl...Read More
- Hubert MoolmanThe gold market is looking a lot like it did early in the millennium, at the start of the bull market. It is setting up for a gold bull market that is likely to be way more intense than the previous one, due to the structural weaknesses incurred by the monetary system since then.Debt levels, for example, have grown significantly since the early 2000s. US Government debts (Federal...Read More
- Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report After five long years, the gold price has finally broken through a key resistance level and is now heading towards $1,400. When the Fed announced possible rate cuts starting in July, after the market closed, the gold price shot up and continued higher during Asian trading. If gold closes above $1,400 by the end of the month, it could be setting the stag...Read More
- Gary SavagePost FOMC update:Read More
China's domestic and export rebar prices both moved slightly higher on Thursday June 20 after a third straight day of gains in the futures market, although demand continued to remain muted.Domestic Eastern China (Shanghai): 3,830-3,870 yuan ($555-561) per tonne, up 10 yuan per tonneNorthern China (Beijing): 3,690-3,720 yuan per tonne, up 10 yuan per tonneThere were few buyers in the market on...Read More
The Fed decided not to cut rates in a closely watched FOMC decision on Wednesday. Former European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and Jim Grant, founder and editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, join "Squawk Box" to discuss the central bank's wait-and-see approach.James "Jim" Grant is an American writer and publisher and the founder of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, a twice-monthly...Read More
Robert Kiyosaki is best known as the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, the #1 personal finance book of all time. His book titles hold four of the top ten spots on Nielsen Bookscan List's Life-to-Date Sales from 2001-2008 alone. Robert is an educational Entrepreneur and real estate tycoon, co-creator of the CASHFLOW (R) board game, founder of the financial education-based Rich Dad Company and author of...Read More
We get more questions about safely storing and insuring metals than anything else. So, we brought together our best minds - Mike Maloney, GoldSilver.com president Alex Daley, and senior analyst Jeff Clark to share their insights on the topic. This is your chance to take a table-side seat and join them in a first-of-its-kind webinar about one of the key concerns for every metals investor: storage....Read More
Jason talks about Wednesday's Fed meeting and how the Fed decided not to cut rates.Jason Burack is an investor, entrepreneur, financial historian, Austrian School economist, and contrarian. Jason co-founded the startup financial education company Wall St for Main St, LLC, to try to help the people of Main Street by teaching them the knowledge, skills, research methods, and investing expertise of W...Read More