By: Ira EpsteinGold's short to long-term technicals:Read More

Friday's nasty stock-market reversal was the most interesting we've seen in a long while. The ostensible cause of the selloff was mounting anxiety over the spread of the deadly coronavirus from China to the U.S. and elsewhere. Three cases have been reported so far in the U.S. and 2,000 worldwide, and although no one seems to expect a major outbreak in North America, it's not hard to imagine a me...Read More

Gold and silver will remain firm as long unless a vaccine to the Chinese corona virus is found. Treatment is there for the virus but there is no vaccine. The quicker the spread of the corona virus globally the quicker will gold and silver rise. Yen will also fall sharply if the numbers zoom. Numbers (of people affected by the corona virus) are suppressed or fudged globally to prevent a panic. Sp...Read More

Domestic prices for hot-rolled coil in Northern Europe were expected to rise due to a combination of uncompetitive import offers and good order books at EU mills, sources told Fastmarkets on Monday January 27.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, ex-works Northern Europe, was ?,?461.25 ($508.42) per tonne on Monday, compared with ?,?460.81 per tonne on January 24.The index was...Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were significantly lower at the close of trading on Monday January 27, with the majority of three-month prices across the complex down by some 2% because of continued risk-aversion in commodity markets, with zinc futures leading the retreat to close at a six-week low.Zinc's outright price on the LME closed at $2,249 per tonne on Monday afternoon, wit...Read More

Export rebar and wire rod prices for material out of the CIS region decreased in the week to Monday January 27 under pressure from slow trading, increasing competition and falling scrap prices in the global market.Last week, Ukraine-origin rebar was available to foreign customers at $430 per tonne fob Black Sea, but Turkish mills reduced their offer levels over the week by $10-15 per tonne to $430...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Monday January 27 that are worth another look.The Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminium imports into the United States will be applied to select downstream steel and aluminium products, President Donald Trump announced late on Friday January 24.The discount for copper scrap imported into China has narrowed in Ja...Read More

The latest bids, offers and deals in the global markets for rebar, wire rod, steel beams and other long steel products.Latest transaction: rebarRebarEast China, domestic, grade III 16-25mm...Read More

The London Metal Exchange will on February 1 introduce a reporting process that will increase transparency into levels of off-warrant stocks. The exchange announced the plans in November 2019 and aims to attract more metal back in LME sheds. It is controversial, but its passage into the LME rulebook on February 1 follows a consultation last year. Some market participants are now saying the LME sho...Read More

A string of long-term deals for cobalt hydroxide show that bullish forecasts for cobalt consumption from the electric vehicle (EV) sector are coming into play. Glencore will supply battery manufacturer SK Innovation with up to 30,000 tonnes of cobalt contained in hydroxide over six years, it said last week - a deal worth about $1 billion in today's market. And other deals also point...Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were significantly lower at the close of trading on Monday January 27, with the majority of three-month prices across the complex down by some 2% because of continued risk-aversion in commodity markets, with zinc futures leading the retreat to close at a six-week low.Zinc's outright price on the LME closed at $2,249 per tonne on Monday afternoon, wit...Read More

The three-month nickel price on the London Metal Exchange was lower during morning trading on Monday January 27, with macro risk-off sentiment prompting a 2.5% decline, while zinc futures followed lower. Nickel's outright price on the LME was recently seen at $12,655 per tonne, below Friday's closing price of $12,950 per tonne with some 1,800 lots exchanged as of 9:20am London time. Prompting down...Read More

The CIS slab export price strengthened in new deals in the week to Monday January 27, as customers accepted higher prices amid positive dynamics in the finished flat steel market, sources said.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel slab, export, fob Black Sea, CIS, rose by $5 or 1% to $425-430 per tonne on Monday, from $420-425 per tonne previously.Early last week, a cargo of Ukrainian sla...Read More

Bank Muscat's Nishant Bhavsar and Ajit Mauskar led Fastmarkets' Apex 2019 leaderboard for base metals analysis with an accuracy rate of 97.93%. In second place for base metals, SP Angel's John Meyer, Sergey Raevskiy and Simon Beardsmore notched an accuracy rating of 97.31%, while Emirates NBD's Edward Bell took third place at 97.11%. Capital Economics' Kieran Clancy was in fourth place with a...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Monday January 27 that are worth another look.The Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminium imports into the United States will be applied to select downstream steel and aluminium products, President Donald Trump announced late on Friday January 24.The discount for copper scrap imported into China has narrowed in Ja...Read More

The discount to the price of ferro-nickel in China has fallen to an all-time low amid building competition from Indonesian NPI supply and larger discounts assigned to quarterly contracts, Fastmarkets heard.Fastmarkets' assessment for ferro-nickel with 26-32% nickel content, cif China fell to a discount of $1,800-2,000 per tonne on Monday January 27, refreshing last month's lowest level and down 58...Read More

Greek authorities will liquidate majority-state-owned multi-metal miner Larco, one of Europe's largest ferro-nickel producers, before selling off assets to investors, the country's energy minister Kostis Hatzidakis said on Monday January 27.The company has been in difficulty for some 35 years and is currently one of the worst-performing in Greece, with debts totalling in excess of ?,?400 million w...Read More

The uranium spot price has hovered around US$25 per lb. over the better part of the last year and long-term pricing is at the US$32 per lb. level. The prolonged bear market and weak macro-environment continue to erode investor confidence in the primary uranium producers, which in some cases have been forced to curtail output to trim operating costs and stem losses.Market stresses on uranium produc...Read More

ONTARIO - The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) announced that it has signed a number of agreements with landowners in South Bruce, Ont., that will allow sufficient access to land for studies at a potential deep geological repository location.In a press release, the NWMO said the community is one of two potential host areas that remain in the site selection process for the project. The...Read More

The discount for copper scrap imported into China has narrowed in January with the level expected to remain flat until the scrap renaming policy takes effect in July.Fastmarkets assessed the copper scrap No2 copper (birch/cliff) imported into China 94-96%, LME/Comex discount, cif China at 33-37 cents per lb on Monday January 27, compared with 35-40 cents per lb a month earlier. Deals were reported...Read More