As you probably know by now, President Trump backed out of the nuclear deal with Iran and is re-imposing harsh sanctions.Continue...Read More

Jason Burack of Wall St for Main St interviewed returning guest, energy specialist, energy industry keynote speaker and long time petroleum geologist, Art Berman http://www.artberman.com/, to speak about the oil market. During this long, in depth discussion, Art talks about how while the number of producing oil wells in the Bakken has been increasing for months because of the higher oil price, the...Read More

Yonhap reports that North Korea's state media said Friday the demolition of its only known nuclear test site has demonstrated its "peace-loving" efforts and pursuit of a "total halt" to nuclear tests.Continue...Read More

Positive sentiment ahead of Las Vegas shows. Suppliersmaintaining firm polished prices and buyers acclimating to new levels. StrongUS market fuels 2017 global diamond jewelry demand +2% to $82B, according to DeBeers. Momentum continues in 1Q as Macy's, J.C. Penney note standout jewelrycategory. Tiffany & Co. 1Q sales +9% to $1B, profit +53% to $142M.Richemont FY jewelry sales at Cartier, Van C...Read More

A metals futures contract denominated in yuan may soon be trading at the London Metal Exchange (LME), according to the exchange's top executiveContinue...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Signet Jewelers, the world's largest retailer of diamond jewelry, will become the first chain to join De Beers' pilot of an end-to-end diamond blockchain program called Tracr, the miner announced.   Tracr is being developed by De Beers in collaboration with the diamond industry.   "Signet will join the growing list of industry leaders trialing the platform during its...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Tiffany & Co. reported that worldwide net sales rose 15% which, combined with a higher operating margin and a lower effective tax rate, resulted in a 53% increase in net earnings its financial results for the three months ended April 30.   Based on these strong and better-than-expected results, management revised upward its outlook for the full year ending January 31, 201...Read More

Anglo Asian chairman Khosrow Zamani said at the release of the company's full-year results that its financial position had improved materially with net debt being almost halved, slashing interest charges.Read More

RAPAPORT... Petra Diamonds plans to sell stock to shareholders in a bidto raise $178 million and pay off its debt, it said Thursday. The miner will issue 332.8 million new shares for $0.54 (GBP0.40) each, a steep discount to Wednesday's closing stock price of $1.02 (GBP0.76). Shareholders will have the right to buy five shares at the reduced pricefor every eight shares they already own. Petra will...Read More

Three-month base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were once again mixed on the morning of Thursday May 24, with copper up 0.4% at $6,864 per tonne, while aluminium, nickel and zinc prices were off between 0.2% and 0.5%. Volume on the LME has been above average, with 7,338 lots traded as of 7.40 am London time. This follows a general day of weakness on Wednesday that saw the complex down...Read More

Fireweed Zinc Macmillan Pass PropertyFIREWEED ZINC LTD. (TSXV: FWZ) is pleased to announce the positive results of an independent Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for its Macmillan Pass Project (the "Project") in Yukon, Canada. The PEA was prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") by JDS Energy and Mining, Inc. (JDS) wi...Read More

RAPAPORT... Attendeesat this year's annual American Gem Society Conclave, which took place April 23to 25 at the Omni Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, received an intense educationcovering a wide spectrum of industry issues, from lab-grown diamonds to salesdata and training. John Carter, CEO and president of Jack Lewis Jewelers in Bloomington,Illinois, and newly named president of the American Gem So...Read More

RAPAPORT... The sale of A. Jaffe's assets to Parag Diamonds is off forthe time being.The "sale motion" - a proposal to auction off A. Jaffe - has been withdrawn, according to a court notice the company's lawyers filed last week. Parag, also known as Paramount Gems, won the bid to acquire the assets earlier this month for $8 million. A New York bankruptcy judge put the sale on hold becaus...Read More

SHANGHAI, May 24 (SMM) – Nonferrous metals saw mixed trading on Thursday May 24. SHFE lead surged 1.5%, tin rose over 1% and aluminium gained 0.8%. SHFE copper dropped 0.9%, zinc lost 0.7% and nickel dipped.The ferrous complex, except for coking coal, rose across the board. Hot-rolled coil led the increases with a gain of 1.5%. Rebar and iron ore rose over 1% and coke nudged up.Cop...Read More

Listen to this podcast on our site by clicking here or subscribe on iTunes here.We're likely to see two or three more rate hikes this year and the continuation of quantitative tightening, through which the Fed is on course to drain $420 billion dollars of liquidity from the markets. Earnings growth has been discounted at current prices, and tech stocks are almost single-handedly holding up th...Read More

Signet Jewelers will become the first retailer to join De Beers Group's end-to-end diamond blockchain pilot programme, known as Tracr.Tracr aims to complete the first digital link all the way from diamond production through to retail.AdvertisementIt is being developed by De Beers, with support from BCG Digital Ventures, and is expected to launch later this year.A Signet project team will work...Read More

U.S. equity index futures were lower this morning. S&P futures were down 4 points in pre-opening trade. Index futures were virtually unchanged following release of Weekly Jobless Claims at 8:30 AM EDT. Consensus was 220,000 versus a revised 223,000 last week. Actual was 234,000. Royal Bank (RY $101.12) is expected to open higher after reporting higher than consensus fiscal second quarter earni...Read More

RAPAPORT... Rapaport's Senior Analyst, Avi Krawitz, spoke at the recent Carat+ show in Antwerp, assessing the current state of the diamond market. Here's a chance to watch the full presentation.Read More

SHANGHAI, May 24 (SMM) – Environmental taxes are likely to drive up production costs for nonferrous metals, given the high levels of emissions in production, said Huang Fuping, Secretary General of the Guangxi Environmental Industry Association. As the Chinese government steps up environmental protection, environmental taxes will become commonplace, he added.At the SMM Le...Read More

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Petra Diamonds’ share price on the LSE fell by more than 20% on Thursday after it announced plans to raise $178-milion, or about £133-million, through a fully underwritten 5 for 8 rights issue.The diamond miner, which has operations in South Africa and Tanzania, said its cash flow generation over the last two years has been impaired by a combinat...Read More