Tonight I would like to start out by looking at the old ratio combo chart that has the GOLD:XAU ratio chart on top with the XAU on the bottom. I’m not going to go over all the details the ratio combo chart has, only to emphasize the 20 year 6 point parabolic arc which shows how gold had been outperforming the XAU until the small double top at 24.33 in late 2015. When the parabolic arc was br...Read More

Following a flip in global steel and ferrous trade flow trends last year caused by economic jitters in Turkey, trade defenses by the United States and production cuts in China, this year it is steel prices that are turning upside down. Hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices are now below rebar prices in a phenomenon rarely seen outside of the Chinese domestic markets. HRC import prices in Vietnam have...Read More

Critical Mass - A point or situation at which change occurs.Just over a year ago Cameco made the difficult decision to close its MacArthur River and Key Lake mines, in response to low uranium prices, leaving the Canadian company’s flagship Cigar Lake facility as its only operating mine left in northern Saskatchewan, home to vast reserves of the nuclear fuel.  The mine closures by C...Read More

Fund manager Matt Geiger provides his overview of the resource market and shares some principles he is using to invest in today's market. The natural resource landscape has shifted dramatically since the end of 2018. At the time, we were still nursing our wounds from an unexpectedly vicious 2018 and hoping to avoid a repeat performance in 2019. I did speculate that "we may have already exited the...Read More

The whole battery supply chain will benefit from lithium benchmark pricing, Fastmarkets head of battery raw materials research William Adams says as he explores what is driving auto manufacturers to support this pricing mechanism. The auto industry is going through a period of unprecedented change due to companies introducing electric vehicles (EV) into their portfolios alongside internal combusti...Read More

The amount of global debt with negative yields soared to $16 trillion, or more than 25 percent of the market. This number has nearly tripled since October 2018. In July, even the 30-year German government bonds went negative for the first time ever, while Nordea Bank, a leading Danish bank, said it will begin offering 20-year fixed-rate mortgages with zero interest, as well as 30-year mortgages at...Read More

Just as we predicted, precious metals aresetting up another extended momentum base/bottom that appears to be aligningwith our prediction of an early October 2019 new upside price leg.Recent news of the US Fed decreasing the FedFunds Rate by 25bp as well as strength in the US stock market and US Dollar aseased fears and concerns across the global markets.  These concerns and fears are still ve...Read More

History may not repeat itself to the letter but it certainly rhymes. That’s what the Fed watchers would say now. The Fed cut the interest rates for the second time this year and the price of gold declined again. What is going on? Fed Trims Interest Rates by 25 Basis PointsYesterday, the FOMC published the monetary policy statement from its latest meeting that took place on September 17-18th....Read More

The dream of building a new world-class copper-gold mine in Pakistan in an area bordering Afghanistan and Iran has been dashed, for now at least. The saga of Tethyan Copper Co's (TCC) efforts to develop the Reko Diq mine found resolution last week with an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ruling in favor of TCC following a dispute that has rumbled on for years.TCC,...Read More

Ferro-alloys prices will continue to trade lower going into 2020 amid slowing economic and steel production growth, Fastmarkets analyst, Amy Bennett, told delegates at the North-American Ferro-alloys conference in Chicago last week."Although ferro-alloy prices will almost certainly trend lower in 2020, given the weakening economic fundamentals, we do not expect to see prices retreat to 2015/2016 l...Read More

Prices of cobalt metal, salts and hydroxide continued their upward momentum in September, while the chemical prices outperformed amid strong demand incited by concerns of supply tightness following the news on Glencore's Mutanda mine closure in early August. Price moves The rally in the benchmark cobalt price slowed in September with aggressive trader stockpiling drying up, amid limited restocking...Read More

Screened through gold producers and royalty companies narrowed down to Newcrest (NCMGF) and Newmont (NEM) for further research.Both companies have better than average free cash flow yields and sustainable levels of debt.Newcrest in particular has a low all-in sustainable cost of $720 per ounce.This article follows up on a hunch about getting gold exposure I talked about for my portfolio. In my tra...Read More

The three-month tin price on the London Metal Exchange was the standout performer at the close of trading on Tuesday October 1, closing over 2% higher amid high turnover while mixed trading pushed zinc futures 2.4% lower. Trading at an intraday low of $15,950 per tonne, LME tin's outright price broke past the $16,000-per-tonne threshold over the morning session, settling at $16,250 per tonne by 5p...Read More

Seaborne coking coal prices continued to rise on Tuesday October 1, with a November-loading cargo of premium low-vol materials fetching $147-148 per tonne fob Australia, sources said during the day.Premium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $146.08 per tonne, up $8.79 per tonne Premium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $159.70 per tonne, unchanged Hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $123.13 per tonne, up $1.88 per...Read More

The three-month copper price on the London Metal Exchange was lower during morning trading on Tuesday October 1, falling below nearby support levels amid high turnover. Recently trading at around $5,653 per tonne, copper's outright price was down by around 1.2% from Monday's closing price of $5,725 per tonne. Volumes traded in copper over the morning were moderately high, with some 4,700 lots...Read More

The increasing consumption of scrap and a potential shift toward the electric-arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking route from the basic oxygen furnace (BOF) route in China are medium- to long-term threats to demand for steelmaking raw materials, while in the near team coking coal import volumes will continue to be affected by iron ore procurement strategies.This was the basis of Fastmarkets research team...Read More

The gold and silver miner is profitable, with a solid balance sheet and increasing production.It raised its full-year gold output guidance and expects all-in costs to trend lower through 2021.The company has a number of exploratory assets representing upside for reserves and long-term production targets.SSR Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:SSRM), with a market cap of $1.8 billion, is a Canadian-based gold and...Read More

Adjustments to EU safeguard measures will "stabilize trade flows by containing import concentrations from certain exporting countries," the European steel association Eurofer said on Tuesday October 1.Although the changes will result in improvements, "the result is still not sufficient for a large part of the sector, especially given that it is facing depressed domestic steel demand," Eurofer said...Read More

Gold prices dropped over 2% Monday, settling below the psychologically important level of $1,500 to post their lowest finish in two months, as strength in U.S. dollar and some buoyancy in U.S. stocks and yields drew demand away from bullion. "Naturally, a strong U.S. dollar is a headwind for gold priced in U.S. dollars," said Michael Armbruster, managing partner at Altavest. "However, technical c...Read More

The three-month tin price on the London Metal Exchange was the standout performer at the close of trading on Tuesday October 1, closing over 2% higher amid high turnover while mixed trading pushed zinc futures 2.4% lower. Trading at an intraday low of $15,950 per tonne, LME tin's outright price broke past the $16,000-per-tonne threshold over the morning session, settling at $16,250 per tonne by 5p...Read More