Gold has been misunderstood and ignored by retail investors, financial advisors and pension managers as a critical portfolio asset during normal market conditions.  However, during periods of market stress, such as we are experiencing now, gold becomes a safe haven asset that will mitigate losses in the portfolio. For a number of years, many experts have been warning about overinflated market...Read More

European buyers of hot-rolled coil expected that domestic steelmakers would accept lower prices, sources told Fastmarkets in Wednesday April 22.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, was ?,?445.00 ($482.60) per tonne on Wednesday April 22, down by ?,?0.63 day on day from ?,?445.63 per tonne on Tuesday.And although official offers have been heard at ?,?455-47...Read More

Back at the 2008 crash low in the HUI there was a reversal pattern, that is pretty rare, which helped confirm that very important low. If you ever wondered what the 2007 – 2008 top looked like and the decline that followed to the 2008 crash low this daily chart for the HUI paints the Chartology I posted at the tent, in real time, as the impulse move to the downside took place.The 2007 &ndash...Read More

A summary of London Metal Exchange warrant premiums from across the globe for the week to Wednesday April 22.Please click...Read More

From Wikipedia: “In English, the phrase fly in the ointment is an idiomatic expression for a drawback, especially one that was not at first apparent, e.g.     We had a cookstove, beans, and plates; the fly in the ointment was the lack of a can opener.” For four centuries, ‘a fly in the ointment’ has meant a small defect that spoils something valuable or...Read More

Thedebt-to-GDP ratio is an important metric economists use for comparing acountry’s total debt to its gross domestic product (GDP). The percentagearrived at by dividing the country’s total GDP by its total debt indicates thecountry’s ability to pay back its loans. The higher the percentage, the higherthe risk of a country being unable to pay the interest on its debt, andtherefore...Read More

The price of mesh-quality steel wire rod in Europe was slightly lower this week because of cheaper scrap costs and slow demand resulting from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday April 22.In the south of Europe, buying activity remained very slow this week due to the lockdown measures in place in various regions.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel...Read More

With his portfolio "solidly anchored" in silver and gold, sector expert Michael Ballanger opines on how bankers and politicians can manipulate markets.As a child, I used to get quite excited at the prospect of having my English "Gran" read me the Hans Christian Andersen book "The Emperor's New Clothes." I found the tale fiendishly amusing, as the charlatan tailor uses lethal doses of fla...Read More

Our researchers have been following Natural Gas for many months and believe the current price level, near $1.65, is acting as a continued historical support level (a floor in price).  Our researchers also used one of our data mining tools to attempt to identify if any opportunity exists in NG over the next 30 to 60+ days for skilled traders.  The purpose of this data mining tool is to ex...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Wednesday April 22 that are worth another look.The Covid-19 pandemic could nudge Chinese steelmakers toward using more electric-arc furnaces (EAF) to produce steel, market sources say.Aluminium stocks on the London Metal Exchange continue to rise and there is now a lack of warehouse space in key Asia locations in a situation that mirrors i...Read More

London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) officials have loudlyproclaimed there are plenty of gold bars in LBMA and COMEX vaults tomeet surging demand from buyers. Unfortunately for them, confidence is particularly fragile thesedays and cracks are starting to appear. Which is why anxious officials there issued not one, but twomemos last week in an attempt to reassure traders.It&rsquo...Read More

The yellow metal and its fiat nemesis. Gold and thedollar certainly move not in a random relation to each other. The strength anddirection of one taking the cue from the other changes over time, but what doesit tell us about the present moment?The key point with regard to the US currency is that it appears to have alreadyended its pullback and is now ready to soar well above its previous 2020 high...Read More

For years, many Gold Bugs (investors who’ve been advocatingbuying Gold and Silver at low prices as a hedge against future global economicrisks) were shunned as conspiracy theorists and nuts. How could these peoplebelieve Gold and Silver were solid investments when the Global equities marketswere rallying 5% a year consistently – what could go wrong?Over the past two weeks, I have perso...Read More

Last month, analysts started warning that oil prices could fall below zero. On Monday April 20, they did.The May futures contract for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil fell as low as minus $37.63 per barrel, the first time ever that the price of the commodity has entered negative territory. By contrast, the June WTI contract is trading at around $20 per barrel, marking the biggest perce...Read More

The Covid-19 pandemic is a unifier in that it impacts all. But sub-Saharan Africa is facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis that threatens to throw the region off its stride, reversing the development progress of recent years and hitting the mining sector hard.The mineral-rich region - which comprises 46 of the 54 countries in the continent below the Sahara - is expected to see its eco...Read More

The Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly hit global electric vehicle (EV) production and sales, and so the broadly anticipated reshuffle of China's EV battery supply chain is likely to speed up in 2020. Many already believed the EV subsidy policy in China that had been scheduled to end in December 2020 would squeeze out some companies in the EV battery supply chain, including producers of precursors, cat...Read More

Aluminium stocks on the London Metal Exchange continue to rise and there is now a lack of warehouse space in key Asia locations in a situation that mirrors issues during the 2008 financial crash, sources told Fastmarkets. With a number of aluminium producers switching their value-added product production to primary aluminium and end-user demand increasingly weak due to Covid-19 shutdowns, storing...Read More

The Covid-19 pandemic could nudge Chinese steelmakers toward using more electric-arc furnaces (EAF) to produce steel, market sources say.This is especially due to the huge market uncertainty caused by the ongoing global economic crisis. EAF-based production could offer mills - most of which are still heavily reliant on blast furnaces (BFs) - the flexibility they need in such circumstances to reduc...Read More

A summary of London Metal Exchange warrant premiums from across the globe for the week to Wednesday April 22.Please click...Read More

The three-month copper price on the London Metal Exchange was the standout performer at the close of trading on Wednesday April 22, with its price action breaching nearby resistance at $5,100 per tonne, while nickel futures lost ground over the day. Copper's outright price on the LME closed at $5,126 per tonne on Wednesday afternoon, climbing from an intraday low of $4,973 per tonne, while turnove...Read More