A summary of the financial results for Russia's largest steelmaker, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), for both the fourth quarter of 2019 and the full year.In briefOutput and sales over the full year of 2019 were both affected by the major works being carried out on the company's blast furnace at Lipetsk, but these began to recover in the fourth quarter once the work was completed.Full year 2019 Steel out...Read More

China's steel refining and rerolling industry's capacity utilization rate was 80.2% in the fourth quarter of 2019, above the national industrial average of 77.5%, according to figures from the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Friday January 17.The country's industrial capacity utilization rate of 77.5% was 1.5 percentage points higher than the corresponding period a year e...Read More

Falling ferrous scrap prices have dulled sentiment in Singapore's rebar import market over the past week. The weekly Fastmarkets price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar) import, cfr Singapore - which mainly looks at cargoes sold into Singapore on a theoretical-weight basis - was $455-465 per tonne for the week to Monday January 20, widening from $465 per tonne a week earlier.Turkish reba...Read More

Bill Holter is currently a writer for Miles Franklin and Jim Sinclair's Mineset where he posts weekly commentaries on gold and financial markets. Prior to joining Miles Franklin in 2012, Bill Holter Worked as a retail stockbroker for 23 years, including 12 years as a branch manager at A.G. Edwards. Later, he left Wall Street to avoid potential liabilities related to management of paper assets. Bil...Read More

An app called Clearview allows the user to snap a photo of anyone. Once that's done, the person who took your picture will have access to all of your information. Continue...Read More

Cato Institute Research Fellow Patrick Eddington recently filed several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to find out if the Federal Bureau of Investigation ever conducted surveillance of several organizations dealing with government policy, including my Campaign for Liberty. Based on the FBI's response, Campaign for Liberty and other organizations, including the Cato institute and the Re...Read More

"There's a lot of chatter within the Fed...about whether their inflation targets even make sense."Nomi Prins is an American author, journalist, and Senior Fellow at Demos. She has worked as a managing director at Goldman-Sachs and as a Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns, as well as having worked as a senior strategist at Lehman Brothers and analyst at the Chase Manhattan Bank. Prins is known...Read More

Keep an eye on Europe. I do not see any way of avoiding this crisis. Politicians are too busy with other things. The free market will push rates higher andContinue...Read More

Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor and representative for Sitka Pacific Capital Management. His articles about the the economy and investing online can be found at Mish Talk. Read More

Data shows hate crimes against Black people, Latinos, Jews and transgender people hit a 16-year high in 2018. Investigative journalist Ben Swann breaks down the trend as gun-rights activists rally against proposed gun legislation in Richmond, Virginia.Read More

New data highlights that many young adults are still living with their parents deep into adulthood and this is largely being driven by economic reasons. Continue...Read More

"I just lost all the #Bitcoin I have ever owned. My wallet got corrupted somehow and my password is no longer valid. So now not only is my Bitcoin intrinsically worthless; it has no market value either."Continue...Read More

Palladium has soared by more than 25% in the last two weeks alone, and almost doubled in value over the last 12 months.Continue...Read More

"While the drivers of recent performance are not entirely clear-cut, we believe the surge in geopolitical tensions may have Continue...Read More

High demand for pig iron, mainly in Asia, has supported further price growth in the export pig iron market in Brazil, sources told Fastmarkets during the week ended Friday January 17.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for pig iron, export, fob port of Vitoria/Rio, was $320-325 per tonne on Friday, up by $5 per tonne from $315-320 per tonne a week earlier.A cargo of 60,000 tonnes was bought for t...Read More

The pig iron import market in the United States has gone up because suppliers have increased their offers, citing low availability of material for February and March shipments, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday January 17.Fastmarkets' price assessment for pig iron, import, cfr Gulf of Mexico, US, was $350 per tonne on Friday, up from $340-345 per tonne a week earlier.Suppliers from the Commonweal...Read More

Sector expert Michael Ballanger considers the last week in the stock and precious metals markets. Ever since Sept. 19, 2008, when Hammerin' Hank Paulson appeared in front of the U.S. Congress on bended knee and begged those clueless politicians for a bailout which he did successfully the spread of moral hazard throughout the world has been a contagion that makes the Bubonic plague appear as harml...Read More

Technical analyst Clive Maund looks at the charts and finds that gold may react back before continuing to climb. At first glance gold looks like it may be about to advance out of a bull Flag, but there are a number of factors in play that we will examine that suggest that any near-term advance won't get far before it turns and drops again, and that a longer period of consolidation and perhaps rea...Read More

Gusa Brasil, formerly knows as Sidepar, partly restarted operations in the state of Par?? in northern Brazil in early January, with the first pig-iron sale made in the middle of the month, sources told Fastmarkets.The restart will add a small tonnage to the pig iron market, however, so participants only expect a minor impact, Fastmarkets was told."Pig iron prices have improved so that makes it rea...Read More

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts silver and predicts a small drop in the price of the metal. If gold is looking set to react back over the short to medium term, which it does, then it implies that silver, which is weaker at this stage in the cycle, is set to react back too.On silver's latest 6-month chart we can see that the fairly tight pattern that has developed over the past several weeks,...Read More