Turkish steel producers have continued to hold back from the deep-sea scrap markets, expecting prices to go even lower, sources said on Tuesday January 21.Prices in the deep-sea scrap markets fell by around $15 per tonne late last week, after a steel mill in the Izmir region booked a US cargo of 35,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (95:5) at $295 per tonne cfr late on January 15.This would have put the HMS 1&...Read More

Beginning in 2020, Fastmarkets will review its pricing methodologies and price specifications across all its Price Reporting Agency (PRA) divisions - Metals & Mining and Forest Products - on an annual basis rather than twice per year. The decision is in line with the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) principles for PRAs, which sets out global standards for orderly and fa...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Tuesday January 21 that are worth another look.China's hot-rolled coil market was quiet on January 21, with producers suspending their operations before the Chinese New Year, while concerns have emerged over post-holiday demand due to the spread of a mysterious respiratory virus that has claimed several lives.SolGold chief executive off...Read More

Profit-taking ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday and nervousness over the outbreak of a new coronavirus in China have led to the market becoming more risk-off this morning, Tuesday January 21.Asian equities are weaker, led by a 2.7% decline in the Hang Seng.Hong Kong's credit rating was cut one position to Aa3 by ratings agency Moody's for its handling of the unrest in the country.Base metalsThre...Read More

AVZ Minerals Ltd (ASX: AVZ) is a mineral exploration company focused on developing the Manono Lithium and Tin Project located in the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in central Africa. AVZ has a 60% interest in the Manono Project. We learned from Nigel Ferguson, who is Managing Director of AVZ Minerals, that Manono is a world class, tier-one asset, with over 400 million tonnes of 1....Read More

Last week, the U.S. and China signed a phase one trade deal that will be big for farmers and manufacturers. The trade pact calls for China to import $95 billion more of certain U.S. goods in 2021 as in 2017, or double the current amount. But there is much more than that.There is intellectual property protection and an end to forced technology transfers. There are agreements to allow more purcha...Read More

In an interview last week with CNBC's Squawk Box Europe, Chief Investment Officer of Smead Capital Management Bill Smead said he believes millennials will prioritize "necessity spending" over the next decade.Smead told CNBC he believes these folks will stop buying "Apple devices, craft beer, and Chipotle burritos" and instead spend their money in a more financially responsible way. Smead said:We h...Read More

Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States might have peaked on high output and market predictions that ferrous scrap prices might weaken in February, some sources warned.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $29.69 per hundredweight ($593.80 per short ton) on Tuesday January 21, down by 0.8% from $29.94 per cwt on Friday January 17 and down by 2.7% from $3...Read More

Prices for steel plate in the United States were flat after producers continued to experience slow bookings in the new year.Attaining the full extent of announced price hikes has posed a challenge for mills after some buyers stocked up in the early stages of an upswing that started in December 2019. A post-New Year's bounce has been elusive so far, with distributors reporting that material has bee...Read More

Domestic prices for hot-rolled coil in Northern Europe have jumped, with support coming from good order books at mills, solid demand and a lack of competitive import offers, sources told Fastmarkets on Tuesday January 21.Fastmarkets' daily steel HRC index domestic, ex-works Northern Europe, rose by ?,?13.93 per tonne day on day to ?,?463.41 ($513.95) per tonne on Tuesday, from ?,?449.48 per tonne....Read More

Recent mill price hikes have continued to drive up high-carbon wire rod prices in the United States, while rising ferrous scrap costs have boosted cold-heading quality (CHQ) wire rod prices.Fastmarkets' assessment for steel wire rod (high carbon), fob mill US, rose to $35 per hundredweight on Friday December 20, up 2.9% from $34 per cwt one month earlier.Over the same pricing period, Fastmarkets'...Read More

Domestic and import prices for steel rebar and billet in the United Arab Emirates increased over the past week, with most buyers' orderbooks filled until late February, market sources said on Tuesday January 21.Steel rebar and billet prices increased in line with the price hike initiated by local UAE rebar producers, who announced higher prices in December 2019 because of strong demand a...Read More

Beginning in 2020, Fastmarkets will review its pricing methodologies and price specifications across all its Price Reporting Agency (PRA) divisions - Metals & Mining and Forest Products - on an annual basis rather than twice per year. The decision is in line with the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) principles for PRAs, which sets out global standards for orderly and fa...Read More

The Minas Gerais state prosecutors' office, MPMG, has charged miner Vale, consulting company T?oeV S?oeD and 16 people - including former Vale chief executive Fabio Schvartsman - for homicide and environmental crimes, according to a document made public on Tuesday January 21.The charges are related to the disaster in Brumadinho on January 25, 2019, when the rupture of a tailings dam in Vale's C??r...Read More

Turkish steel producers have continued to hold back from the deep-sea scrap markets, expecting prices to go even lower, sources said on Tuesday January 21.Prices in the deep-sea scrap markets fell by around $15 per tonne late last week, after a steel mill in the Izmir region booked a US cargo of 35,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (95:5) at $295 per tonne cfr late on January 15.This would have put the HMS 1&...Read More

Jim Willie CB, editor of the "HAT TRICK LETTER" Subscribe: Hat Trick Letter Use the above link to subscribe to the paid research reports, which include coverage of critically important factors at work during the ongoing panicky attempt to sustain an unsustainable system burdened by numerous imbalances aggravated by global village forces. The historically unprecedented ongoing collapse has be...Read More

- Clive MaundAt 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 which 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 reaction is necessary before it makes significant further progress.On the 6-month chart we can see ho...Read More

1. Chinese New Year buying and more deaths in war-torn Yemen have ignited yet another solid rally in gold.2. Please click here now: https://gracelandupdates.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2020jan21gold1.png Double-click to enlarge. Gold is staging a breakout from an irregular bull flag pattern and doing so from strong support in the $1550-$1530 zone. 3. I'm projec...Read More

StrengthsThe best performing metal this week was palladium, up 17.92 percent on tight supplies and strong demand. One-week lease rates for palladium rose for a seventh day to 32.56 percent. The majority of gold traders and analysts were bullish on gold in the weekly Bloomberg survey, as attention turns to the next stage of the U.S.-China trade deal. Turkey's gold reserves rose $478 million from...Read More

Clint Siegner, Money MetalsNarayana Kocherlakota, the former President of the Federal Reserve bank of Minneapolis wants you to know the Federal Government can never borrow too much money.Our government already borrowed $23 trillion and deficits are expected to exceed $1 trillion per year. He knows many Americans feel anxious about the federal government going bankrupt, and he has a simple soluti...Read More