The Turkish steel mills have been staying away from deep-sea scrap purchases because of weak rebar sales and a sufficiency of scrap stocks, market participants told Fastmarkets on Tuesday June 22.The most recent deals were heard on June 15, when two United States-origin cargoes were sold.A mill in the Marmara region bought those cargoes, which comprised HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $500 and $501 per tonne,...Read More

Seaborne premium hard coking coal prices continued to rise in the cfr market due to tight supplies, while prices were largely stable in the fob market, with market participants adopting a wait-and-see attitude, sources told Fastmarkets on Tuesday June 22.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $177.87 per tonne, up $0.59 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $290.19 per t...Read More

Iron ore prices rose on Tuesday June 22, and there was market chatter about the potential resumption of blast furnace operations and the easing of emissions restrictions in Tangshan, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $214.32 per tonne, up $6.17 per tonne62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $216.00 per tonne, up $6 per tonne58% Fe fines high-grade pr...Read More

Mr Xu Kuangdi, the former president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said at a symposium on Monday June 21 that using scrap in steelmaking would be an "effective and realistic" way for China to achieve carbon neutrality in the steel sector and it should be "strongly encouraged" nationwide, sources said.The symposium was organized by the China Iron & Steel Association (Cisa) for the national...Read More

China imported 111,432 tonnes of steel scrap in May, surpassing the total of 109,978 tonnes of its imports of the steelmaking raw material in the first four months of 2021, according to the latest Chinese customs data.Last month's imports are also 56% higher than those imported in April.Of the total, 79,327 tonnes - or 71.2% - originated in Japan. South Korea remained China's second-largest scrap...Read More

The federal funds rate remains glued at zero... as Mr. Powell and his fellows announced this afternoon.Yet is the Federal Reserve wobbling on its forecast of "transitory" inflation? Does it now fear an enduring inflationary menace?Today they mumbled the "transitory" line again.Yet their "dot plot" suggests two rate hikes in 2023. In March, they plotted no increases until 2024.James McCann, deputy...Read More

For years, currency analysts (myself included) have looked for signs of an international monetary "reset" that would diminish the dollar's role as the leading reserve currency and replace it with a substitute, which would be agreed upon at some Bretton Woods-style monetary conference.Now, it looks like the move towards the long-expected Great Reset is accelerating.At the recent G7 summit in the UK...Read More

I've written for years about different nations' persistent efforts to dethrone the U.S. dollar as the leading global reserve currency and the main medium of exchange.At the same time, I've said that such processes don't happen overnight; instead, they happen slowly and incrementally over decades.The dollar displaced sterling as the leading reserve currency in the twentieth century, but it took t...Read More

Since the word inflation is so loaded, let’s use the more neutral (and more accurate) term, decline in purchasing power: an hour of your labor buys fewer goods and services of lesser quality than it did a decade ago or a generation ago.While the conventional discussion focuses on monetary inflation, i.e. expansion of money supply, the real rip-your-face-off sources have nothing to do with mo...Read More

The biggest financial story today is fear of inflation. Inflation has spooked the bond market and raised expectations that the Fed will soon have to raise interest rates to fight inflation. Any increase in rates will also hurt stocks because stocks and bonds compete for investor dollars. If yields on bonds go up, prices on stocks will go down.Growth stocks, like many leading tech stocks, are espec...Read More

Spread the lovePRIVATE BLOG - Gold & the InsanityPrivate blog posts are exclusively available to Socrates subscribers. To sign-up for Socrates or to learn more, please visit Ask-Socrates.com.https://ask-socrates.com/Read More

The market has thrown in with the Federal Reserve - it expects inflation to prove "transitory."May's consumer price index came issuing from the Department of Labor this morning.In the technical vernacular, May's numbers came in "hot" - 5% - the greatest scorching in 13 years. CNBC:The consumer price index, which represents a basket including food, energy, groceries, housing costs and sales across...Read More

Join Fastmarkets and the London Metal Exchange on Tuesday June 29 for a webinar about European aluminium premiums ahead of the launch of the LME's new cash-settled futures contract.The LME will launch its new European duty-paid aluminium premium cash-settled contract on July 19, which is settled against Fastmarkets' benchmark aluminium P1020A premium, in-whs dp Rotterdam.The LME previously la...Read More

Hot-rolled coil prices across China's domestic market continued to move lower on Tuesday June 22, while futures prices extended their decline, sources said.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 5,270-5,310 yuan ($815-821) per tonne, down by 90-120 yuan per tonne.The most-traded HRC contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange slipped in morning trade, approaching a four-week low of 5,070 yuan per tonne i...Read More

China's domestic rebar prices tumbled further on Tuesday June 22 on weakening demand caused by falling futures.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 4,800-4,840 yuan ($743-749) per tonne, down by 80 yuan per tonne The October rebar futures contract traded below Monday's settlement price of 4,991 yuan per tonne throughout Tuesday, which kept the spot market bearish.Buyers booked limited quantities and...Read More

The Cobalt alloy grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lbtrade log including business, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets publishes trades logs for its key price assessments and indices to bring more transparencyinto the markets it covers and the pricing process it applies.Fastmarkets assessed Cobalt alloy grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lb at 20.85-21.50 on Tuesday June 22,...Read More

The Cobalt standard grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lb trade log including business, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets publishes trades logs for its key price assessments and indices to bring more transparencyinto the markets it covers and the pricing process it applies.Fastmarkets assessed Cobalt standard grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lb at 20.80-21.50 on Tuesday June 22,...Read More

Miners China Moly and IX Metal have joined Glencore and Huayou's Fair Cobalt Alliance (FCA), a body whose aim is to professionalize the artisanal mining sector in the global heartland of cobalt production - the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)."[Because we are] a large industrial miner that maintains strict product control and custody procedures, artisanal and small-scale mining [ASM] sits outsi...Read More

A summary of China's battery raw materials exports for May 2021.In brief Exports of cobalt tetroxide fell in May amid falling downstream demand for batteries used in consumer electronics outside of China as a result of a lack of semi-conductor chips and a resurgence...Read More

A summary of China's battery raw materials imports for May 2021.In brief Imports of cobalt intermediates declined from April amid logistical disruptions while buying appetite thinned compared with the first quarter due to falling downstream cobalt salts prices.Imports of cobalt metal slightly decreased on a month-on-month basis but almost doubled year on year, with cargoes booked via short-term co...Read More