(Adds background, details)MOSCOW, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Real wages in Russia rose less than expected in December and industrial output continued to fall, data showed on Thursday, putting pressure on the economy and living standards ahead of a presidential election in March.Russia's oil-dependent economy began a fragile recovery in 2017 after two years of recession, triggered by a sharp drop in global...Read More
(Kitco News)- Technical profit taking is weighing on gold prices, as themarket ignores a more than 9% drop in new home sales.Tuesday,the U.S. Commerce Department said that new home sales fell 9.3% in December,to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 625,000 homes, down from November'srevised rate of 689,000 units. According to consensus forecasts,economists were expecting to see a sa...Read More
NEW YORK, Jan 25 (Reuters) - U.S. 30-year mortgage rates rose to a 10-month peak this week in line with rising Treasury yields on expectations faster global economic growth and speculation of reduced stimulus from overseas central banks, Freddie Mac said on Thursday.The borrowing cost on 30-year mortgages, the most widely held type of U.S. home loan, averaged 4.15 percent in the week ended on Jan....Read More
(Kitco News) - Thethreat of a “currency war” may provide fuel for gold to continue its rally,Commerzbank analysts said Thursday.Thedollar has significantly weakened since U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchincommented at the World Economic Forum in Davos Wednesday that a weaker dollarwould be “good” for the U.S. Previously, since the Clinton presidency, U.S.administrations...Read More
Jan 25 (Reuters) - The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index , which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, rose on Thursday on higher rates for capesizes and panamax vessels.* The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize shipping vessels, was up 17 points, or 1.42 percent, at 1,217 points.* The capesize index gained 76 points, or 4.53 p...Read More
(Kitco News)- The gold market haspared earlier gains but remains not far from its highest level in 1 1/2 years as the euro strengthensagainst the U.S. dollar following comments from European Central Bank PresidentMario Draghi.While the ECBremains committed to its accommodative monetary policy, the euro posted stronggains against the U.S. dollar after Draghi said that Europe will notparticipate...Read More
(Kitco News) - Kitco aficionados, it isnow time to have your say in where you think gold prices are heading in theshort-term.Will gold prices go higher, lower or remain unchanged nextweek? Kitco readers will have until 9 a.m. EDT, Friday to cast their vote. The results will be tabulated and released after noon (12PM EDT) along with the results fromour market professional survey.Readers can also se...Read More
(Kitco News) - Kitco aficionados, it is now time to have your say in where you think gold prices are heading in the short-term.Will gold prices go higher, lower or remain unchanged next week? Kitco readers will have until 9 a.m. EDT, Friday to cast their vote. The results will be tabulated and released after noon (12 PM EDT) along with the results from our market professional survey.Readers can al...Read More
SINGAPORE, Jan 25 (Reuters) - China State Shipbuilding Corporation's listed units CSSC Holdings and CSSC Offshore & Marineplan to bring in major investors to inject about 10.2 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) of capital into four shipyards.China's shipyards have been suffering from a prolonged downturn in the shipping industry and both companies said the planned capital increases were part of the g...Read More
For the second time in as many weeks, Kroger Co (NYSE:KR) is caught up in e-commerce buzz. Specifically, reports have surfaced that the grocer conducted early-stage business talks with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA). It is unclear whether the reported talks will amount to an actual partnership, but they could represent a continued effort to counter Amazon.com (AMZN) and its foray into the...Read More
CARACAS, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Venezuela will hold its new DICOM currency exchange auctions in euros, the central bank said on Thursday, as the socialist government seeks to move away from transactions in U.S. dollars.President Nicolas Maduro's government, which is called a "dictatorship" by Washington and faces some U.S. financial sanctions, has also begun pricing its oil barrel in yen.The...Read More
Shares in London-listed Botswana Diamonds (LON:BOD) were hit Thursday by the news that said sampling work at the company's Thorny River project in South Africa had failed to produce enough diamonds for an economic modelled diamond valuation.While chairman John Teeling said that further geological work would be conducted to determine the economic viability of the resource, the company's stock drop...Read More
Shares in London-listed Botswana Diamonds (LON:BOD) were hit Thursday by the news that said sampling work at the company's Thorny River project in South Africa had failed to produce enough diamonds for an economic modelled diamond valuation.While chairman John Teeling said that further geological work would be conducted to determine the economic viability of the resource, the company's stock drop...Read More
Mr. Matthew Hornor reports MAPLE GOLD PROVIDES STATUS ON EXPECTED TIMING FOR UPDATED RESOURCE ESTIMATEMaple Gold Mines Ltd. has provided an update on timing for its next resource estimate update. The company's last National Instrument 43-101 inferred mineral resource estimate (2.8 million ounces at 1.05 grams per tonne goldusing a 0.5 g/t cut-off grade) was filed on April 11, 2017 (Micon 2017). Th...Read More
Mr. Matthew Hornor reports MAPLE GOLD PROVIDES STATUS ON EXPECTED TIMING FOR UPDATED RESOURCE ESTIMATEMaple Gold Mines Ltd. has provided an update on timing for its next resource estimate update. The company's last National Instrument 43-101 inferred mineral resource estimate (2.8 million ounces at 1.05 grams per tonne goldusing a 0.5 g/t cut-off grade) was filed on April 11, 2017 (Micon 2017). Th...Read More
Anil Mall, President of Stockpools Inc. sat down with Kate Hiscox, President of Venzee Technologies Inc. (TSX-V: VENZ), to discuss how Venzee solves retails' biggest efficiency problem, spreadsheets.Venzee's technology, leveraging artificial intelligence to streamline product information management, allows thousands of vendors and retailers to seamlessly share information, avoiding delays and...Read More
Strong earnings are once again serving as a bullish catalyst for the U.S. stock market, with futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) and S&P 500 Index (SPX) trading above fair value after big beats from 3M (MMM) and Caterpillar (CAT). The Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) is also signaling a positive start, as Amazon (AMZN) gets a pre-market lift from a price-target hike to $1,800 at D.A. Davidson,...Read More
Freeport-McMoRanInc. (NYSE: FCX),the world’s largest publicly traded copper company but also a significant goldproducer due to by-product metal, lists fourth-quarter net income of $1billion, or 71 cents per share, compared to $292 million, or 21 cents, in thesame period a year ago. After adjusting for net gains of $291 million primarilyrelated to tax benefits associated with U.S. tax reform,...Read More
(Kitco News) - In December, we suggested that the gold price was beginningto exhibit the same patterns we witnessed in 2016 and 2017, when gold began asignificant uptrend in the first half of those years. The primary catalyst forthis year's stellar run has been the weakening dollar and Treasury SecretaryMnuchin's comments that a weak dollar is a positive for U.S. growth. which has accelerated the...Read More
The Democratic Republic of Congo's new proposed mining code could hurt businesses, says SP Angel analyst John Meyer, but not too badly. The code proposes royalties of 3.5% on base metals and of 5% on strategic metals such as cobalt that will affect Glencore and Randgold but aren't disastrous given the high grades mined in the DRC. "Cost, aggravation [corruption] and security issues relating to wor...Read More