A look at hot-rolled coil prices around the globe.Blip or paradigm shift? Prices for hot-rolled coil in the United States last month fell below those in China for the first time since at least 2013. The reversal of normal trends - Chinese prices are typically well below US levels - resulted from US domestic tags plummeting in July while Chinese prices recorded a third consecutive month o...Read More

Prices for carbon steel plate in the United States have continued to hold steady after neither producers nor distributors reported any impetus to offer cheaper prices or to book bigger tonnages.Buyers saw no urgency to book large inventory buys from the mills at the moment, because there is plenty of material on the ground at various service centers that can sell to each other at competitive price...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday August 3 that are worth another look.The year 2020 has been the ultimate stress test for commodity market participants and will stay challenging amid significantly impaired consumer demand trends due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the chief executive officer of Concord Resources. Mark Hansen said the economy is operatin...Read More

Ferrous scrap sellers in Brazil were expecting to raise their prices in new negotiations with steelmakers, with domestic consumption starting to recover and with increases seen in international prices for scrap and local prices for steel rebar, according to national ferrous scrap association Inesfa.After a lackluster first half of the year in terms of scrap demand, which led in turn to higher expo...Read More

Prices for domestic and imported merchant bar quality (MBQ) steel in the United States were again flat in July while demand was generally stable and modest gains in sales volumes were seen in some markets. Fastmarkets' monthly price assessment for steel bar 2 x 2 x 1/4 -inch angle merchant products, fob mill US was $33.80 per hundredweight ($676 per short ton) on Friday July 31, unchanged since...Read More

Newrange Gold reported first results from the drill program at its Pamlico Gold project in Mineral County, Nevada. In a news release, Vancouver-based precious metals exploration and development company Newrange Gold Corp. (NRG:TSX.V; NRGOF:OTC) announced "the first results from the ongoing reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at the Pamlico Gold project in Nevada."The firm noted that 25 hole...Read More

The mineralization at Aurania Resources' flagship project is 'resolving into specific targets.' Aurania Resources Ltd. (ARU:TSX.V; AUIAF:OTCQB) announced in a news release it confirmed high-grade copper-silver in the Tsenken B target area of its flagship Ecuadorian Lost Cities-Cutucu project."We are very encouraged to see the copper-silver in the Tsenken area resolving into specific targets that...Read More

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts warning signs of a Fed-driven stock market downturn. There is a now widespread, universally held belief, especially among "dumb money" market participants, that the markets cannot drop because the Fed is going to keep creating money in ever greater quantities to throw at them, pumping them higher and higher. This erroneous belief appears to be based on an assu...Read More

The Critical Investor takes an in-depth look at Treasury Metals and its new acquisition in Ontario. Treasury Metals Inc. (TML:TSX: TSRMF:OTCBB) recently surprised the markets with the raising of C$11.5 million in an oversubscribed financing, after announcing the pretty interesting all-equity acquisition, worth C$44 million in shares at the time of the news release, of the neighboring Goldlund ope...Read More

Turkish steel mills made no moves in the deep-sea scrap markets on Monday August 3 due to the Eid al-Adha religious holiday in the country.Turkey has been out of the market for the eid since Thursday of last week, when the latest known purchases were heard on the market. The holiday will...Read More

Bangladesh is one of the world's fastest-growing import markets for steel scrap. The country's rapid industrialization in recent years and its lack of natural steelmaking raw material resources mean that scrap imports - in addition to domestic material - are of high importance to the country's steelmakers.But why has 2020 been a particularly important year for the Bangladesh market? And how is Ban...Read More

Export billet prices from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region continued to increase in early August in line with higher offers from mills, which were supported by rising import scrap costs globally.Fresh billet offers from both Ukrainian and Russian suppliers were heard within the range of $395-400 per tonne fob Black Sea, while some producers asked for as much as $405 per tonne fo...Read More

No matter what shape the recovery is, the epidemic will likely have lasting, positive effects on the gold market.During the most acute phase of the pandemic and the following economic crisis, there was no time to analyze various WGC’s reports on the gold market. Let’s make up for it!I’ll start with the report “Recovery paths and impact on performance” about the gold m...Read More

The latest forecast from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.As we enter the summer season across the northern hemisphere, almost half a year has passed since the Covid-19 pandemic began to seriously affect Europe and the United States.One would not really be able to tell that such a dramatic event had occurred by looking at stainless steel prices, however, because they are more or less...Read More

Our trading team witnessed a big drop in Platinum and Palladium prices early this morning while Gold and Silver continued to push moderately higher.  We began to question this move and investigate any historical relevance to previous patterns.  Our research team pointed out that both Platinum and Palladium rolled lower just 3 to 4 days before the breakdown in the US stock markets on Febr...Read More

Yesterday’s session was indeed volatile around theFOMC, just like we warned,and gold even moved to its previous high, likely forming a double-top pattern.Even though gold moved higher on an intraday basis, it didn’t invalidate itsprevious breakdown, which was a bearish sign. Gold was likely to decline, andit is declining so far in today’s pre-market trading. The above chart show...Read More

It is said that a picture is worth 1000words, and thus two pictures are worth 2000 words. The entire financial systemis fracturing and imploding, no exaggeration. The entire monetary system is beingundermined in a true Weimar sense, in reality. Such a situation almost neverhas come about without a world war. Since 2001 in the Jackass opinion, theworld financial war has been in progress with the im...Read More

The following is an update of a previousarticle: During the 2008 financial crisis the Fedsignificantly increased the US monetary base to keep the system from collapse.They are currently in a similar situation, and have done (is doing) the exactsame thing.Here is a chart of the US monetary base toillustrate the similarity: With the 2008 actions they were able to avoidthe collapse until now. Will th...Read More

The US automotive industry's recovery is a tale of two trends - production and sales - and while a strong rebound in production has a more immediate impact on demand for steel, so far the bounce back has been greater in sales.This has translated into a slower rebound in steel demand, American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) chief economist Timothy Gill said. "The auto market situation has certainl...Read More

Last week, I put out an article outlining my expectation for a pullback in GLD before we head to the 200+ region. Within the comments section, I outlined my plan as to how I am going to play for a potential pullback. However, that pullback has not yet materialized.For those that have followed me closely for years, you know that I have been heavily long physical metals and mining stocks since I sta...Read More