London Metal Exchange copper bulls are turning to the options market to make cautious bets that copper's price will continue its rapid rise into March 2020, Fastmarkets learned.Open interest in March options has spiked and a total of 9,635 lots of call options - equivalent to over 240,000 tonnes of copper - are currently live with strike prices between $6,400 per tonne and $6,600 per tonne.Call op...Read More

Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States slipped on increased jitters about the direction of raw material prices amid a surge in availability of Brazilian slabs.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $30.52 per hundredweight ($610.40 per short ton) on Tuesday January 14, down by 0.7% from $30.75 per cwt on Monday January 13 but up by 1.9% from $2...Read More

ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, the major long steel producer in Ukraine, has called on the country's government to review its decision to impose an import tariff on rebar and wire rod steel imports from Belarus, referring to evidence of dumping.On December 6, 2019, the Interagency Commission on International Trade announced the results of an anti-dumping investigation into steel imports from Belarus an...Read More

Mexico's largest integrated steelmaker, Altos Hornos de M?(C)xico (Ahmsa), has shut down its blast furnace No6 in the country's northern city of Monclova due to the current market conditions, it has said."The company decided to adjust production to variations in demand, which has been weak since last year, and to pursue greater flexibility to respond to the expected positive changes in the market,...Read More

The export market for flat rolled products from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) remained strong in the first two weeks of January on low availability, sources told Fastmarkets this week.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel HRC, export, fob Black Sea was $475-490 per tonne on Monday January 13, up from $460-470 per tonne a week earlier.Offers from Russian expor...Read More

RAPAPORT... E-commerce spending in the US grew to a record high during the holiday season, driven by a rise in smartphone purchases, according to Adobe Analytics.Revenues rose 13% year on year to $142.5 billion over the November-December period, with consumer purchases on smartphones raking in more than $50 billion in sales for the first time, and accounting for 84% of online sales growth. Ea...Read More

RAPAPORT... Tiffany & Co. has unveiled the location that will serve as its home during the two-year renovation of its New York flagship store.The Tiffany Flagship Next Door, a four-story space on East 57th Street, adjacent to the jeweler's Fifth Avenue store, will take the place of its primary location until late 2021. Tiffany plans to test out periodic installations and exclusive pa...Read More

RAPAPORT... Chow Tai Fook intends to close up to 15 stores in Hong Kong as street protests and a tourism slowdown have hit sales.Leases on more than 40 of the jeweler's 91 retail locations in the municipality are due to expire during the fiscal year starting April 2020, the company said Tuesday. Management will decide which of those leases it will allow to lapse."We will review the store performan...Read More

RAPAPORT... The Rapaport Diamond Podcast ushers in the new year with a review of the holiday season and some bold predictions for 2020. Is this the year of retail refurbishment? Will rough buying become more demand-driven? How is De Beers relating to sightholders going into lab-grown? Will John stick to his fitness regime and Sonia to her goal of being more mindful? And will Billy Porter stea...Read More

RAPAPORT PRESS RELEASE, January 14, 2020, New York... The Rapaport Group has released its Diamond Price Statistics Annual Report for 2019, evaluating the performance of polished-diamond prices. The report provides an in-depth analysis of the past year's trends and compares the price changes within specific diamond categories.Diamond prices fell in 2019 as the trade faced macroeconomic uncertainty...Read More

(IDEX Online) - EyeOnJewels has launched a local online marketplace for jewelry in the US that is standardizing the shopping process. The new service enables consumers to find fine jewelry and watch products from local vetted and certified jewelers without having to search them individually. Using EyeOnJewels, shoppers can add items from different retailers to their cart and pay for them in o...Read More

RAPAPORT... Alrosa's sales increased 11% year on year to $363.8 million in December as demand in the manufacturing sector continued to rebound, the Russian miner said Monday."In December, we observed signs of stabilizing diamond demand that had emerged earlier in the second half of the year amid the gradual restoration of market balance," said Alrosa deputy CEO Evgeny Agureev. The month...Read More

(IDEX Online) - The International Gemological Institute (IGI) has opened a new center in Shanghai. The new office includes classrooms and a lab is located in the Fosun building in the Bund Financial Center. IGI said the center will offer enhanced educational and grading services as well as gemological information. "IGI's Shanghai base will promote mutual understanding between IGI and the...Read More

(IDEX Online) - The Carnegie Institution of Washington is alleging that its patents for growing diamonds are being infringed by some well-known lab-grown makers. The institute has filed lawsuits in New York against six companies, including Pure Grown Diamonds Inc. and IIa Technologies PTE Ltd., reports Bloomberg.The disputes have arisen over the use of Carnegie's chemical vapor deposition (CV...Read More

De Beers Group’s diamond brand, Forevermark, unveiled the first boutique in its Next Generation Retail Concept, located within jewellery department store Caibai, in Beijing, China.The newly renovated 100 m2 boutique breaks away from the traditional across-the-counter service, inviting consumers to discover the world of Forevermark through an immersive, interactive and informative experience,...Read More

Turkish steel producers continued to hold back from the deep-sea scrap markets on the second day of the working week because of the soft rebar market and firm scrap prices, sources said on Tuesday January 14.The country's steel producers went through last week with only one deep-sea cargo bought, when a steel mill in the Marmara region booked a European cargo at an average price of $300 per tonne...Read More

Seaborne iron ore prices strengthened further on Tuesday January 14 amid continued appreciation of the yuan against the dollar and lower shipments from Australia and Brazil. 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $97.03 per tonne, up $1.10 per tonne. 62% Fe Pilbara Blend fines, cfr Qingdao: $96.07 per tonne, up $1.10 per tonne. 62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $97.53 per tonne, up $1.33 per tonne. 58% F...Read More

Seaborne coking coal prices were stable on Tuesday January 14 while trading activity took a breather.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $155.26 per tonne, unchangedPremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $160.87 per tonne, unchangedHard coking coal, fob DBCT: $125.01 per tonne, unchangedHard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $135.76 per tonne, unchanged  ...Read More

Indian steel producer Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) has reopened a major direct reduced iron (DRI) plant to boost its steel output by a further 1.5 million tonnes in the period from April 2020 to March 2021, the firm said on Tuesday January 14. JSPL bucked the general trend of output cuts among India's steel producers in late 2019, the company said in its quarterly results on January 2. Bumper sal...Read More

Artemis all set thanks to unique approachSPONSOREDartemis resourcesChina's unwrought copper imports rose 9.1% in December from the previous month to their highest since March 2016, customs data showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported, with improving industrial activity and dwindling scrap metal supply lifting demand.Imports of copper concentrate came in at 1.928 million tonnes, down 10.6% from Novembe...Read More