By Avi GilburtOn Thursday, we saw the worst jobless claims number in history (and by far). Yet, the S&P500 futures rallied over 200 points from their overnight lows. So, are we to believe that the "cause" of that rally was the jobless claims?I can assure you that if the market dropped 200 points there would be no question in your mind that the drop was certainly caused by the jobless claim's ann...Read More

The Covid-19 pandemic has opened up financing opportunities for metals and mining-focused investment firms. It's also created a problem. The one-two punch demand and supply shock that the virus has created is putting the mining sector under extreme pressure. With banks even more reluctant than before to provide capital to the mining sector amid the tumultuous global financial backdrop, corporates...Read More

Metals, mining and alloy producers have been scenario-planning in response to the novel coronavirus. The South African government appears to have just removed all but one option.President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered the country's mineral resources industry to shut underground mines and furnaces from Thursday March 26, unless they can be operated remotely. The shutdown will last for three weeks an...Read More

The 2019-nCoV pandemic is definitely a black swan event, one which nobody saw coming. Global business sentiment has taken a massive hit, with major industries grinding to a halt on travel bans, quarantine orders and border controls. Major airlines such as Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways have grounded their fleets, stock markets have collapsed with exchanges closing and tourism is taking a pun...Read More

Spot availability of copper scrap is now being limited by a plummeting commodity price in March because suppliers have refused to destock at the price level."At this discounted price level, some copper scrap suppliers could suffer losses. The price of scrap cannot even cover the processing costs so suppliers have become reluctant to sell," a source with a major copper refinery in China said. High-...Read More

The lockdown in India has caused a variety of logistical issues resulting in imported scrap material becoming stranded at ports and leading to potentially large charges at a time when trading has come to a sudden halt, market sources have told Fastmarkets. On March 24, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the country would begin a 21-day lockdown period effective from midnight until...Read More

The three-month aluminium price on the London Metal Exchange continued its decline at the close of trading on Monday March 30, settling at its lowest level since April 2016, while a steady uptick in lead saw its outright price close at a two-week high. Aluminium's underlying price on the LME closed at $1,530.50 per tonne on Monday afternoon, its lowest level in just under four years, while turnove...Read More

Seaborne iron ore prices dropped closer to the $80-per-tonne level on Monday March 30 on plunging rebar prices in China and a negative outlook for downstream demand in April among some market participants. Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $82.98 per tonne, down $3.38 per tonne 62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $83.88 per tonne, down $3.14 per tone58% Fe fines high-grade...Read More

Seaborne coking coal prices plummeted on Monday March 30, with steel mills - especially those outside China - expected to cut output in the second quarter. Fastmarkets IndicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $147.73 per tonne, down $5.71 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $155.54 per tonne, down $2.49 per tonneHard coking coal, fob DBCT: $134.01 per tonne, down $5.88 per tonneHard...Read More

The new issue of Aluminium Market Tracker is now online at metalbulletinresearch.com.In this edition, Fastmarkets' research team delivers key insights and forecasts into aluminium markets around the world.Aluminium price down 2.3% week-on-week amid stock market sell-offGlobal markets remain rattled by the spread of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCOV) across Europe and the United States. Panic-sellin...Read More

Copper has attempted to rebound since early September following a marked sell-off in the summer months where macro and fundamental forces have been prevalent.On the macro front, copper has benefited from a slight easing in US-China trade tensions and more monetary policy easing across the globe - including China, where copper consumption is the most exposed - that has shored up investor sentiment....Read More

The new issue of the Seamless OCTG & Linepipe Market Tracker is now online at metalbulletinresearch.com.In this edition, Fastmarkets' research team delivers analysis of seamless OCTG and linepipe across international markets:Covid-19 underscores pipe outlookUnsurprisingly, the concern in the seamless pipe markets across the regions is the effect of the spread of Covid-19 on public health and econo...Read More

The new issue of the Steel Market Tracker is now online at metalbulletinresearch.com.In this edition, Fastmarkets' research team delivers key insights and forecasts into the long and flat products markets.This week's risks to our latest flat-rolled forecasts:The Chinese government is stepping up help to the economy, increasing banks' liquidity. But the spread of the coronavirus worldwide is likely...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.Although China is slowly returning to pre-outbreak activity, the same cannot be said for the rest of the world, which is grappling with the Covid-19 outbreak, with a fifth of the global population and counting under lockdown. Average blast furnace activity in China is recovering but iron ore demand from outside China is expec...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

With new cases of COVID-19 outside China rising, the chances of a pandemic and global recession have increased recently. What are the implications for the gold market?Coronavirus Spreads Over the WorldUnfortunately, the new coronavirus remains the hottest topic of the news. Although the COVID-19 epidemic has been slowing down in China since the beginning of February, it has quickly spread to sever...Read More

In December, the Sveriges Riksbank, the world’s oldest central bank, has raised the main interest rate from -0.25 percent back to zero, ending its experiment with the negative interest rate policy, as the chart below shows.Chart 1: Riksbank’s repo rate from January 2010 to January 2020. This is a huge change. As a reminder, Riksbank was a pioneer of negative interest rates. As early as...Read More

The Covid-19 pandemic has opened up financing opportunities for metals and mining-focused investment firms. It's also created a problem. The one-two punch demand and supply shock that the virus has created is putting the mining sector under extreme pressure. With banks even more reluctant than before to provide capital to the mining sector amid the tumultuous global financial backdrop, corporates...Read More

Gold and stocks are moving south together; but they are not correlated. Nor, are they inversely correlated, as some gold enthusiasts claim.Reference to gold as a safe haven has some investors buying gold to hedge against a stock market crash. It is almost as if gold has become a pseudo defensive stock.It seems investors actually expect gold’s price to go up when the stock market goes down; a...Read More

You know that the oil markets have truly gone to the dogs when they are suddenly riskier than one of the world’s most volatile commodities: bitcoin.   Bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies are synonymous with extreme bouts of volatility. However, it’s crude oil that is now earning that dubious distinction after exhibiting price swings wilder than even the leading cryptocurrency.O...Read More