Vehicle production in Brazil fell by 21.1% year on year in March due to lockdowns introduced to contain the Covid-19 pandemic in the last 15 days of the month, car manufacturer association Anfavea said on Monday April 6. Output was 189,958 units during the month, compared with 240,763 units a year before. Production also fell by 7% in comparison with February data, which was 204,200 units. Over th...Read More

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value." Alan Greenspan, American economist, Former Chair of the Federal Reserve 1987-2006, firm Greenspan Associates LLC; b. 1926 "Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency, where no fiat currency, including the dollar, can match it...Read More

The recent range trade in gold and silver will be broken soon and a new range will be formed. Physical gold supplies are expected to rise with Swiss gold refiners opening. I am doubtful whether they will be able to meet the current demand. Gold mines supplies are less. Russia has said that it's central bank will not buying gold at the moment. Russia will sell it mined gold in the market. Russia'...Read More

Gold miners’ stocks haveendured epic volatility in this past month, literally crashing before blasting backhigher in a violent V-bounce.  That precedingwicked capitulation flush savagely forced the weak hands out, paving the wayfor gold stocks’ next major upleg.  The resultingfierce rebound signals it is already underway, with plenty of speculators andinvestors now chasing th...Read More

Oil prices are signaling a pullback today Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) futures look ready to kick off the week with a flourish, sitting over 700 points above fair value.Futures on the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) and S&P 500 Index (SPX) are also sharply higher before the open,as investors are encouraged by somewhat upbeat coronavirus rhetoric coming from the White House yesterday that touted s...Read More

Moon Iron and Steel (Misco) started production of billet at its facility in Sohar, Oman in the week starting March 30, sources close to the company told Fastmarkets.Misco has an electric arc furnace, ladle furnace and a five-strand continuous billet caster with a production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per year.The company will also...Read More

Spain's prime minister Pedro Sanchez has urged the Spanish parliament to extend the country's lockdown to April 25 to curb the spread of Covid-19, which would mean the country's steel industry continuing to operate at reduced rates, Fastmarkets heard on Monday April 6. On Saturday April 4 Pedro Sanchezsaid thelockdown in Spain should be extended through to April 25 to overcome the disease, discard...Read More

Vehicle production in Brazil fell by 21.1% year on year in March due to lockdowns introduced to contain the Covid-19 pandemic in the last 15 days of the month, car manufacturer association Anfavea said on Monday April 6. Output was 189,958 units during the month, compared with 240,763 units a year before. Production also fell by 7% in comparison with February data, which was 204,200 units. Over th...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday April 6 that are worth another look.Italian stainless steelmaker Acciai Speciali Terni (AST) has resumed production, following a week of downtime in response to the coronavirus pandemic, sources told Fastmarkets on April 6.The Covid-19 pandemic may have just sealed the fate of already-struggling aluminium smelting capacity.Chile's s...Read More

Domestic prices for hot-rolled coil in Northern Europe have been fairly stable day on day in a slow market, sources told Fastmarkets on Monday April 6.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, was ?,?473.00 ($510.96) per tonne on Monday, up by ?,?3 per tonne from ?,?470.00 per tonne on April 3.Monday's index was calculated based on deals, offers and "achievable...Read More

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value." Alan Greenspan, American economist, Former Chair of the Federal Reserve 1987-2006, firm Greenspan Associates LLC; b. 1926 "Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency, where no fiat currency, including the dollar, can match it...Read More

By Clint SiegnerLondon Bullion Market Association (LBMA) officials have loudly proclaimed there are plenty of gold bars in LBMA and COMEX vaults to meet surging demand from buyers.Unfortunately for them, confidence is particularly fragile these days and cracks are starting to appear. Which is why anxious officials there issued not one, but two memos last week in an attempt to reassure traders.I...Read More

Strengths? ? The best performing precious metal for the week was gold, off only 0.45 percent. The yellow metal is continuing its strong showing. Gold futures had its sixth straight quarterly gain in the first three months of this year - the longest stretch of gains since 2011. Bullion rose 4.8 percent in the first quarter. Last week, the gold market was thrown into turmoil as logis...Read More

The stock market wafted last week into a psychologically surreal zone somewhere between terror and, if not greed, then at least jittery optimism. How can stocks rally at all when no one can predict whether the deadly spread of coronoavirus is about to overwhelm America as it did Italy? The economic picture remains just as murky, since odds the global economy will fall into a full-blown depressio...Read More

The recent range trade in gold and silver will be broken soon and a new range will be formed. Physical gold supplies are expected to rise with Swiss gold refiners opening. I am doubtful whether they will be able to meet the current demand. Gold mines supplies are less. Russia has said that it's central bank will not buying gold at the moment. Russia will sell it mined gold in the market. Russia'...Read More

The London Metal Exchange three-month tin price closed trading higher on Monday April 6, with thin volumes across the complex allowing it capture the bulk of price gains, while aluminium entering LME warehouses put the light metal under pressure. LME tin's underlying price closed at $14,280 per tonne on Monday afternoon, climbing from an intraday low of $14,140 per tonne, while just 188 lots of ti...Read More

Demand for slab originating from the Commonwealth of Independent States came from China only during the week to Monday April 6, as activity in other outlets was disrupted due to the effects of Covid-19 pandemic.A 40,000-tonne cargo of Russia-origin slab to be shipped from the port of Saint Petersburg was reported sold to China at $347 per tonne cfr. Another mill sold a 50,000-tonne cargo to the sa...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday April 6 that are worth another look.Italian stainless steelmaker Acciai Speciali Terni (AST) has resumed production, following a week of downtime in response to the coronavirus pandemic, sources told Fastmarkets on April 6.The Covid-19 pandemic may have just sealed the fate of already-struggling aluminium smelting capacity.Chile's s...Read More

The Covid-19 pandemic may have just sealed the fate of already-struggling aluminium smelting capacity. At under $1,500 per tonne, aluminium cash prices on the London Metal Exchange are at levels last seen in 2015 and not far shy of the lows seen during the 2008-09 financial crisis. Estimates are that as much as half the world's smelters are now under water, meaning cuts and/or closures are inevita...Read More

The London Metal Exchange three-month tin price closed trading higher on Monday April 6, with thin volumes across the complex allowing it capture the bulk of price gains, while aluminium entering LME warehouses put the light metal under pressure. LME tin's underlying price closed at $14,280 per tonne on Monday afternoon, climbing from an intraday low of $14,140 per tonne, while just 188 lots of ti...Read More