About 200 people recently took part in the International Collegiate Mining Competition, held in Virginia City, Nevada.Bryn Llewellyn, from Camborne School of Mines at the University of Exeter, hand steeling. Photo by Max Willcock.For the 41st year in a row, the three-day event gathered students from mining schools from around the world who formed 18 teams in the men's category and eight teams in t...Read More

Michael Ballanger discusses recent movements in the stock and precious metals markets. Many years ago, while attending university in Saint Louis, Missouri, I had just returned from a Florida Spring Break and had decided to have a few adult beverages with a couple of my hockey teammates to celebrate April Fools' Day, so off we went to the infamous "Thank God It's Friday!" bistro located about a fi...Read More

Import prices for stainless steel in East Asia softened slightly over the past week due to weak regional demand, despite the recovery in the London Metal Exchange nickel price.Fastmarkets' weekly import price assessment for benchmark-304 stainless 2mm trimmed cold-rolled coil (CRC) in East Asia was $2,030-2,110 per tonne cif on Wednesday April 3, down by $10-20 per tonne from a week earlier.Fastma...Read More

Barrick Gold's (TSX:ABX) (NYSE:GOLD) executive chairman, John Thornton, said Wednesday he was encouraged by the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) newly elected president Felix Tshisekedi's vision of attracting foreign investment and supporting the development of the country's mining industry.The Canadian miner, which operates the country's Kibali mine, one of the world's ten largest gold mines,...Read More

ISIS has claimed it kidnapped and killed a Canadian geologist in Burkina Faso three months ago, according to the latest issue of the propaganda newsletter Al-Naba, circulated last week.Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Kirk Woodman, vice-president of exploration for private gold explorer Progress Minerals, was found dead on Jan. 16 in rural Burkina Faso, after having been abducted a day earlier.Propagan...Read More

Chip stocks were an outperformers in today's tradingU.S. stocks finished a choppy trading day higher, with Wall Street optimistic a U.S.-China trade deal is within reach. This, alongside strength in the tech sector, had stocks brushing off a dreary update on private payrolls. By the close, the Dow had muscled higher, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq brought their daily win streak to five.Continue read...Read More

Steel H-beam prices in Southern Europe went down over the past week due to weaker demand, higher stock levels and falling feedstock costs, sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday March 27.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for domestic S235-grade, 200x200mm, category-2 H-beams in the Southern European domestic market went down by ?,?5 per tonne on Wednesday to ?,?625-640 ($700-717) per tonne deliv...Read More

ToledoTrade is offering Schaeffer's VIPs a special introductory offer. The following is a paid advertisement. ToledoTrade may compensate Schaeffer's for referring prospects over to ToledoTrade.Starting today, a special offer with the recently launched online brokerage service, ToledoTrade, is giving Schaeffer's VIPs a special offer, including trades from $1 until 2020... or even at cost!1Why...Read More

Domestic prices for hollow steel sections in both Northern and Southern Europe moved down this week, with feedstock prices continuing to fall and an expected seasonal pickup in demand failing to arrive, sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday April 3.Fastmarkets' domestic price assessment for commodity-size, grade-S235 square hollow sections made in Northern Europe went down by ?,?5-10 per tonne to...Read More

MGI, meanwhile, is booming after one analyst said the stock is "cheap"The S&P 500 Index (SPX) and Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) are eyeing a fifth straight gain, thanks to semiconductor strength. Among individual stocks making notable moves are alternative energy name Ocean Power Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:OPTT), money transfer firm MoneyGram International Inc. (NASDAQ:MGI), and Chinese e-commerce giant A...Read More

Most analysts are still bullish on the biotech name, thoughThe shares of Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY) are down 2.8% to trade at $84.30, after RBC downgraded the biotech name to "sector perform" from "outperform." The analyst in coverage doesn't see any more opportunities for near-term growth, and that its underappreciated value is already baked in. In the wake of the downgrade, INCY options...Read More

Weekly contracts are seeing an uptick in popularity Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) today announced it's launching its highly anticipated 5G service in Chicago and Minneapolis. In the press release, the company says customers can expect download speeds of 450 Mbps, with speeds ranging as high as 1 Gbps. To utilize the service, users will need to add a Verizon 5G moto mod to their cell phone....Read More

It’s possible last week’scascading selling rout in palladium ended its multi-year bull market. Theformerly white-hot metal lost more than $200/oz (but is beginning to rebound).For now, however,palladium prices remain in a long-term uptrend above the bullishly aligned 20-weekand 50-week moving averages – and physical supply remains tight. Regardless of whether the palladium market...Read More

You will recall that last Wednesday a warning was posted before the open that gold was about to break sharply lower from a bear Flag, which it did the very next day, so you had a full day of trading to prepare, either by exiting positions, placing stops or purchasing inverse ETFs or Puts, and I was pleased to learn that some of you did just that. As we can see on gold's latest 8-month chart bel...Read More

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Bitcoin's sharp rally on Tuesday was being described by some as a 'mystery surge', but it is no mystery at all for anyone who has seen the film Night of the Living Dead. Buffs may recall that the movie's flesh-eating zombies were activated by radioactive contamination from an exploding space probe that had visited Venus. Although no similar explosion has been reported by NASA, it seems entirely...Read More

The shares tend to blossom in the month of AprilThe real estate sector emerged near the top of our internal Sector Scorecard, signaling this group has been outperforming amid relatively bearish expectations -- what we like to see as contrarians. What's more, the iShares U.S. Real Estate ETF (IYR) could enjoy some seasonal tailwinds, if recent history is any indicator, and exchange-traded fund (ETF...Read More

Tesla stock is trading near a key long-term trendlineTesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is enjoying solid gains today, up 2.8% to trade at $293.94. CEO Elon Musk, fresh off the April 1 release of his rap song about slain gorilla Harambe, will have his court date tomorrow, April 4, with the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC). Musk faces contempt of court charges on allegations he violated an agreement...Read More

In February, the World Gold Council released the newest edition of Gold Investor. What can we learn from the report? Let’s discuss gold’s role in the onslaught of the cashless society, its role as a portfolio diversifier, reverse asset and source of liquidity.Rogoff Wants Cashless Society, but Appreciates GoldAs a lot has happened recently, we didn’t have time to analyze the late...Read More

Traders are eyeing weak private payrolls and U.S. services sector dataThe Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) has paredits earlier gains, as traders turn their attention to a weakening U.S. services sector, which saw growth slow last month to a pace not seen since August 2017. In addition, Wall Street continues to weigh worse-than-expected private payrolls data, which precedes Friday's highly anti...Read More