[A friend who made his fortune in the laundry business has enjoyed enviable returns on his nest egg by staying fully invested in stocks. The following is a personal letter from his financial advisor telling him why, even after the stock market's spectacular rally since late March, he should stay in equities. The advisor's list of pros and cons nicely sums up the thinking of many of advisors with...Read More

Data ProblemsPermanent LossesJob OpeningsSticky ProblemsWargaming with Uncle DougYou Need to Have a Plan B, C, D, and...A World I Don't RecognizeWork has always been a fact of life. Paycheck-producing jobs are actually a recent development. Until the Industrial Revolution, most people lived on subsistence agriculture, sustaining themselves with whatever they could produce or working as slaves/se...Read More

Key information from the pricing session for Fastmarkets' alumina index, fob Australia on Monday July 13. The index was calculated at $277.26 per tonne, up from $275.49 per tonne on Friday July 10 and at its highest since March 19. Key drivers:  Multiple deals concluded after publication on Friday July 10 for September loading. The highest deal was concluded at $284 per tonne fob Western Aust...Read More

What a crazy six months! Let’s look at the chart below. As you can see, over the first half of the year, gold gained more than 16 percent, rising from $1,515 at the end of December 2019 to $1,762 at the end of June 2020. The beginning of the year was, as usual, positive for the gold prices. However, gold did not rally in January as it did in just like in the previous years. Instead, it shot...Read More

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz claimed last week that the Kingdom will be the world’s biggest hydrocarbon producer “even” in 2050.“I can assure that Saudi Arabia will not only be the last producer, but Saudi Arabia will produce every molecule of hydrocarbon and it will put it to good use … It will be done in the most environmentally sound and s...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday July 13 that are worth another look.Brazilian miner Vale has entered into a non-binding agreement with Japanese companies Kobe Steel and Mitsui to form a low-emission steel joint venture, it said in a filing to Brazil's securities commission CVM on July 13.Russian multi-metal miner Nornickel reported a second Arctic fuel spill durin...Read More

As third quarter trading kicks off following a tumultuous first half of the year, investors are hoping for an auspicious July.Both stocks and precious metals posted impressive advances in the second quarter. The S&P 500 finished the April-June period with a gain of nearly 20%, its best quarterly performance since 1998. The Dow Jones Industrials, meanwhile, posted its best quarter since 1987.It...Read More

Gold just closed the month and quarter and itsperformance on the final day of both was very encouraging for the bulls. What’sgoing on and what changed?Let’s start with the big picture. Gold just moved to the November 2011 high and intoday’s pre-market trading it even moved above it. The volume on which goldmoved up last month was relatively small, which doesn’t support the...Read More

Some gold bulls have bought in heavily to the argument that gold price suppression has been an ongoing activity for years, even decades. Supposedly, trading in the gold market is manipulated in ways that depress the market price for gold.Assertions are made that the manipulation takes place in a shroud of secrecy; and the unexpected lower prices for gold, or prices that don’t meet wildly bul...Read More

Formulating a Trend ForecastIt is clear that Silver is NOT Gold, so NOT to make the mistake of looking at what Gold has done and thinking Silver will replicate that move, it rarely does! At best Silver tends to play catchup towards the end of precious metals bull trends.Silver is in a strong bull trend off the March low that is targeting resistance at $19 and then $20, beyond which lies $21. The b...Read More

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts his expectations for how silver prices will respond to movement in the stock market.Much of what is written in the parallel Gold Market update is equally applicable to silver and it will not be repeated here. Although silver has picked up significantly since its March low it has greatly underperformed gold over the past two years. But this is normal during the...Read More

Gold has broken out from a two-month-long consolidation (from $1680 to $1770), but the other precious metals markets have not confirmed Gold’s strength.The gold stocks (GDX, GDXJ) remain below their May highs while Silver remains below significant, multi-year resistance around $18.75. Silver closed Monday at $18.06.Furthermore, Gold, when priced against foreign currencies, has not broken out...Read More

We all fear the second wave of infections. But the U.S. hasn’t evencontrolled the first one! Bad news for Americans, but good news for gold. Please take a look at the chart below. As you can see, the epidemiological situation in the UnitedStates does not look well. The number ofnew daily confirmed Covid-19 cases has been rising again since mid-June,which means that coronavirus is far from be...Read More

Europe's largest copper producer Aurubis has appointed Michael Hellemann to the senior vice president of commercial, the company said on Monday July 13.Hellemann's responsibilities will include developing and implementing raw material procurement in addition to sales and marketing.He will report directly in to Aurubis chief executive Roland Harings, who began his tenure just over a year ago. "We a...Read More

Gold miners’ stocksrocketed out of mid-March’s stock panic, breaking out to major new bull-markethighs in mid-May.  Such blisteringly-fastgains, and gold stocks’ upleg stalling out since, have left many tradersnervous about this sector.  Calls for aserious selloff are mounting.  But arguingin favor for more near-term gains to come, gold stocks never grew overvalued...Read More

During the coronavirus crisis many people couldn’t find physical gold, as there was a bullion shortage at dealerships. And these lucky individuals who managed to obtain bullion had to pay high premiums. We invite you to read our today’s article about the high premiums in physical gold market during the pandemic and find out whether they were indicated scam or supply crisis.Gold is expe...Read More

IMF predicts deeper global recession and slower recovery, just as Iexpected. Good news for gold. The June edition of the IMF’s WorldEconomic Outlook Report Update is out! The main message is that theIMF predicts now even a deeper recession than two months ago.As a reminder, in April edition of the WorldEconomic Outlook Report, theIMF projected that the global economy would contract sharply b...Read More

Silver is still near all-time lows in manyways. One of the most significant measures wherein silver is at an all-timelow, is its price relative to the amount of US dollars (US monetary base) inexistence.Below, is a long-term chart of the silverprice relative to the US monetary base: As you can see it is at all-time lows(0.004), but actually even lower, since this chart was done before the massivea...Read More

Key information from the pricing session for Fastmarkets' alumina index, fob Australia on Monday July 13. The index was calculated at $277.26 per tonne, up from $275.49 per tonne on Friday July 10 and at its highest since March 19. Key drivers:  Multiple deals concluded after publication on Friday July 10 for September loading. The highest deal was concluded at $284 per tonne fob Western Aust...Read More

Seaborne premium hard coking coal prices edged downward on Monday July 13 on the influence of recent deals, but there was no activity in the market.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $112.49 per tonne, down by $0.54 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $123.11 per tonne, down by $1.69 per tonneHard coking coal, fob DBCT: $93.66 per tonne, down by $0.17 per tonneHard...Read More