Alcoa Corp has called on the aluminium industry to assess the cost effectiveness of its smelting capacity and make cuts where appropriate - or face a ratcheting up of inventories and a protracted period of low prices. Roy Harvey, the US producer's chief executive officer, said that while curtailments were costly, both financially and in terms of job losses, they were more than necessary at this mo...Read More

Precious metals markets enter the month of May with somemixed signals near term.  But thelong-term picture continues to look constructive.  All the metals appear to have put in majorbottoms during the panic selling of mid to late March. Barring another wave of virus outbreaks and economiclockdowns, the gradual reopening of state, local, and national economies shouldstart to unleash more...Read More

Silver is poweringhigher in a new bull market after getting clobbered in March’s stock panic.  Investors have been flocking back to silverin the aftermath of that ultra-rare extreme-fear event.  That brutal selloff also utterly wiped out speculators’upside bets in silver futures, giving them massive room to buy back in.  After being pummeled to record-low levelsrelative...Read More

The three-month copper price on the London Metal Exchange fell by 0.54% to close at $5,181.50 per tonne on Friday May 15.All the base metals remained under pressure on Friday and despite copper reaching an intraday high of $5,272 per tonne, it failed to maintain momentum and closed below the $5,200-per-tonne threshold with a turnover of just under 14,000 lots.Total copper stocks stood at 278,750 t...Read More

10 years ago every “analyst” and his brother was hyping the future price of gold and I kept track of their guesses in an article entitled “Gold Going To $2500, $5000, $10000, Even More? These 148 “Analysts Think/Thought So“. None of their forecasts “panned” out (pun intended) but some are back at it again suggesting that we are going to see gold going as h...Read More

April marks a second month of truly extraordinary developmentsin markets – from negatively priced crude oil futures to a record spike inunemployment claims to a lockdown-defying rally in stocks. The financial media is touting the S&P 500’s surge of morethan 13% in April – the biggest one-month gain for the index since 1974. While stock market investors have made up a big chu...Read More

Seaborne iron ore prices rose again on Friday May 15, supported by demand for crude steel production and increases in swaps and futures markets. Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $93.65 per tonne, up $1.48 per tonne. 62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $96.33 per tonne, up $1.83 per tonne. 58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $79.63 per tonne, up $1.25 per tonne....Read More

Negative oil prices isanother corona consequences that no one saw coming. A 30% drop in world oil demand due to the corona lockdown's resulting in demand falling to 70m barrels per day, whilst the producers are pumping out over 90mbd meant that storage faculties had become saturated, thus nowhere to transport new supply to. What actually triggered the collapse was the expiry of May NYMEX oil futur...Read More

Fastmarkets' Shanghai benchmark copper premium surged to its highest level since September 2015 on May 15, with traders looking for overseas material to tap arbitrage gains. sources said. Fastmarkets assessed the copper grade-A cathode premium, cif Shanghai at $95-120 per tonne on May 15 Friday, compared with $95-115 per tonne the day before. The premium, widely used by the copper industry fo...Read More

Theaction in silver is really interesting. Let’s check the prospects for volatilewhite metal, and the relevant historical analogy it offers. Is the major 2008 –2020 analogy in terms of price moves remains intact? In short, yes. SilverShares Its Two CentsSilverplunged to our initial target level and reversed shortly after doing so. It wasfor many months that we’ve been featuring t...Read More

I think the case is closed, or it should be closed. But with firmly ingrained perceptions passed down from one generation of inflationist gold bugs to the next, you never know. Remember the old dismissive “gold is silver is copper is tin is oil is hogs” line from the 2003-2008 time frame? Probably not, but I remember it because it was me saying it against an army of inflationist commod...Read More

Agora Financial's Byron King and John-Mark Staude of Riverside Resources offer their viewpoints on markets during the COVID-19 pandemic in this conversation with Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable.Maurice Jackson: Today, we will seek to discover the true price of gold and silver and prospect generators. Joining us for a conversation is Byron King of Agora Financial, along with Dr. John-Mark St...Read More

The metals complex showed relative stability this week asthe oil market suffered a historic meltdown. West Texas Intermediate Crudecrashed 70% at one point this week on the continuous contract, bringing pricesbriefly below $7 per barrel. By Thursday, prices were trading between $14 and$18 per barrel.The volatility on the May futures contract was even moreextreme. On Monday, May futures for crude o...Read More

It is reasonably well known that many Romanemperors debased their currency (coinage). This was a very bad practice, sinceit is really a reflection of the debasement of the value of the kingdom (empireor country); going from a honest and just society to a corrupt and unjustsociety.One of the reasons (effects) of debasing thecurrency was the transfer of wealth from the citizens to the ruling class....Read More

The gold miners’ stockssurged to a major bull-market breakout this week!  Powering decisively above their years-oldsecular resistance is a hugely-important technical event.  It proves this gold-stock bull is alive andwell, greatly improves sentiment, and puts this high-flying sector on countlessmore traders’ radars.  New bull highs fuelself-feeding bullish psychology, as...Read More

Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable speaks with Andy Schectman, president of Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments, about the present situation with physical precious metals.Maurice Jackson: Today, we're going to discuss precious metals premiums, the COMEX and the big picture. Joining us for a conversation is Andy Schectman, the president of Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments. Andy...Read More

With the supply/demand balance moving in favor of miners, the outlook for uranium stocks is the brightest it has been in years, according to McAlinden Research Partners. SUMMARY: Uranium has been enjoying a stealth bull market due to the coronavirus outbreak. Temporary mine closures to slow the spread of the virus at production facilities have triggered an unexpected supply squeeze, sending the pr...Read More

There are as many ways to play the PM sector as there are investors. Some will only buy the big cap PM stocks for safety. Others will only buy the mid cap producers. Some will only buy a mix of big caps and mid cap producers. And then there are the PM stock investors that will only play the juniors. Each has its own advantage depending on your risk tolerance. Some of you are wondering why is Rambu...Read More

Chris Vermeulen, CEO & Founder of Technical Traders Ltd., joins Tom Bodrovics at Palisade Radio to discuss the markets and Chris says, “This is the time to really be paying attention to the markets… It could be a bloodbath.”Chris is seeing uncertainty that could bring equities lower as money is flowing into safe havens. The charts are showing that markets are approaching a m...Read More

Gold stocks are the crazy ride in the markets. The swing are so great it does not matter if you miss a bullish the break out as another deep pull back allows you to enter with ease. The good news is the (!XAU) PHLX Gold/Silver Index (in the chart below) is very friendly to price cycles. These cycles can be used for timing markets, it also makes it clear if you fight the price cycle you may be in l...Read More