Cobalt and lithium consumers are prepared to help fund projects into production by prepaying for material amid projected strong demand from the electric vehicles market, according to Cape Lambert director Stefan M? 1/4 ller. Pricing power is in the hands of producers, while consumers have underestimated how tight cobalt and lithium supply will become, M? 1/4 ller told Metal Bulletin on the sidelin...Read More
Selenium prices moved up this week reaching its highest since May 2017 on continued material tightness and healthy appetite from Asian consumers. Metal Bulletin's selenium free market in-warehouse price rose to $19-21.50 per lb on Wednesday February 7, an increase of 2.5% from the previous assessment to a level last seen in May 2017. "The market is really heading up," a trader in Europe said....Read More
Base metals traded on the London Metal Exchange are little changed this morning, Thursday February 8, with copper (+0.5%) and zinc (+0.5%) the only metals in positive territory, while the rest are under slight downward pressure. Volume remains healthy, however, with 18,941 lots traded as of 07.16 am London time.The base metals complex seems to be undermined by a more pronounced appreciation in the...Read More
Key data from the Wednesday February 7 pricing session in Shanghai.Cobalt Metal MB China domestic min 99.8% RMB/tonneKey drivers- The Chinese cobalt price retreated to 580,000-620,000 yuan per tonne (equivalent to $35.91-38.39 per lb ex-China VAT) on Wednesday, down by 0.4% from a week earlier, according to Metal Bulletin's latest assessment.- Slack demand ahead of the Chinese New Year break (Febr...Read More
Imports of stainless cold-rolled coil and sheet from China, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand will be subject to anti-dumping duties until February 7, 2023, the Malaysian authorities announced on Thursday February 8.The move was the result of investigations started in May 2017 after major Malaysian mill Bahru Stainless filed a petition on behalf of the domestic industry. Bahru Stainless&n...Read More
China's ferrous futures ended the morning trading session on Thursday February 8 little changed from their opening prices. Futures closing prices - morning session Shanghai Futures Exchange May rebar: 3,937 ($628) per tonne, up 7 yuan per tonne May hot-rolled coil: 4,029 yuan per tonne, up 16 yuan per tonne Dalian Commodity Exchange May iron ore: 522.50 yuan per tonne, down 2 yuan per tonneMay cok...Read More
The appreciation of the Chinese currency against the US dollar and the suspension of export offers ahead by several mills ahead of the Lunar New Year resulted in East Asian stainless steel prices rising slightly over the past week.Metal Bulletin's assessment of prices for benchmark 304 stainless 2mm cold-rolled coil was $2,250-2,320 per tonne cif East Asian ports for the week ended Wednesday Febru...Read More
China's iron ore imports jumped 9.3% year on year in January to pass 100 million tonnes - making it the second-highest ever monthly total.The world's largest buyer of the steelmaking raw material took in 100.34 million tonnes last month, up from 91.82 million tonnes a year earlier, according to preliminary Chinese customs data...Read More
Metal Bulletin correspondents round up the main topics and trends from the final day of the 2018 Investing in African Mining Indaba. Resource nationalism Miners are expecting a showdown in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a new mining code is slated to be signed into law. But instead of fighting individual battles, companies are for the first time pulling together in a force that unites bot...Read More
Metal Bulletin correspondents round up the main topics and trends from the final day of the 2018 Investing in African Mining Indaba. Resource nationalism Miners are expecting a showdown in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a new mining code is slated to be signed into law. But instead of fighting individual battles, companies are for the first time pulling together in a force that unites bot...Read More
Metal Bulletin correspondents round up the main topics and trends from the final day of the 2018 Investing in African Mining Indaba. Resource nationalism Miners are expecting a showdown in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a new mining code is slated to be signed into law. But instead of fighting individual battles, companies are for the first time pulling together in a force that unites bot...Read More
Metal Bulletin correspondents round up the main topics and trends from the final day of the 2018 Investing in African Mining Indaba. Resource nationalism Miners are expecting a showdown in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a new mining code is slated to be signed into law. But instead of fighting individual battles, companies are for the first time pulling together in a force that unites bot...Read More
Metal Bulletin correspondents round up the main topics and trends from the final day of the 2018 Investing in African Mining Indaba. Resource nationalism Miners are expecting a showdown in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a new mining code is slated to be signed into law. But instead of fighting individual battles, companies are for the first time pulling together in a force that unites bot...Read More
(Kitco News) - The beginning stages of a new relationship between bitcoin and gold have been discovered by RBC Capital Markets.The correlation is described as a “marginal[ly] negative” one by Christopher Louney, commodity strategist at RBC Capital Markets.“When we saw interest in bitcoin peak [in December], as measured by Google Trends, that is when we noticed this marginal negat...Read More
Say what you will about the underlying causes moving gold lower or higher, but the bottom line and the real truth is that dollar weakness or dollar strength is an unremovable component of gold pricing, not an outside market.While it is an entirely fair statement to say that there are external markets that are influencing gold prices, one of the most significant factors both during the last rally a...Read More
(Kitco News) - Gold and silver prices ended the U.S. day session solidly lower Wednesday, with gold hitting a four-week bottom and silver a six-week low. Fully bearish “outside markets” were behind the selling pressure in the precious metals today, as the U.S. dollar index rallied sharply and crude oil prices were solidly lower and hit a five-week low. April Comex gold futures were las...Read More
(Kitco News) - Equity markets continue to recover from Monday’s flash crash and while volatility is back, it would take a much bigger correction to boost gold and precious-metals prices on a safe-haven trade, according to one commodity analyst.In a telephone interview with Kitco News, Martin Murenbeeld, president of Murenbeeld & Co., said that while the drop in equity markets was shockin...Read More
(Kitco News) - Gold would face some cross-currents from rising inflation expectations, benefitting as an inflation hedge but also facing potential selling as Treasury yields rise, says Mitsubishi in a weekly report on precious metals. Meanwhile, strategist Jonathan Butler points out that palladium’s premium over platinum is slowly disappearing. Global equities sold off sharply at the start o...Read More
Editor's Note: Welcome to Kitco's new Bitcoin Daily Technical Alert. Every trading day veteran Kitco technical analyst Jim Wyckoff will provide you with a concise and easy-to-understand near-term technical brief on Bitcoin. Importantly, Jim will glean the short-term charts and technical studies, and then alert you to the signals he sees regarding upcoming potential bigger price moves or price tren...Read More
(Kitco News) - Gold continues to experience pressure as investors generate liquidity in the wake of the global equity shakeout. The bounce in equity valuations yesterday was actually a negative for gold prices, as investors assumed the recent drop was merely a retracement, as with past sell-offs, and jumped back into the equity space. Gold, a proxy for liquidity, came under selling pressure as inv...Read More