Gold has big year in 2020 and outlook for this year robust. Learn about monetary expansion and gold future prices.Read More
The gold futures price reached US$1,767/ounce this week before retreating, which was the second time it has surpassed US$1,760 in the past two months, marking some of gold's highest levels in several years.Read More
The London Metal Exchange is proposing the permanent closure of its open-outcry trading floor and the incentivization of greater liquidity on its electronic trading platform, LMESelect. The proposals, laid out in a new discussion paper on future market structure, also include potential changes to the exchange's margin methodology and the introduction of potential additional disclosures and policie...Read More
The domestic price for hot-rolled coil in Northern Europe inched down day on day on Tuesday January 19 due to slow market activity, sources told Fastmarkets. Both buyers and steelmakers have been holding back from making new deals, according to market participants. Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe at ?,?719.00 ($868.00) per tonne on Tuesda...Read More
Turkish deep-sea scrap import prices have gone down once again in the latest trade heard for a US-origin cargo, sources said on Tuesday January 19.A steel mill in the Marmara region booked a US cargo, comprising 6,500 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $450 per tonne, 22,000 tonnes of shredded and 1,500 tonnes of bonus at $460 per tonne cfr. The deal was agreed on January 16, with the cargo scheduled to...Read More
RAPAPORT... Rough-diamond prices at Petra Diamonds' January tender rose 8% on a like-for-like basis, returning to levels seen before Covid-19, the miner said Tuesday.The tender included about 382,000 carats of rough mined during the first fiscal half that ended December 31. Those stones yielded $30.5 million. "The improvement in the market...is very encouraging, and will provide some support as we...Read More
Chilean copper producer Codelco's board of directors has approved a $1.24 billion investment in the expansion of its El Teniente facility just south of the capital, Santiago, the state-owned copper producer said on Tuesday January 19.Those capital expenditures represent the total budget estimated for the Diamante and Andesita projects, and will be spent together with another $1.93 billion, already...Read More
RAPAPORT... Gemological Science International (GSI) has launched a service that tests lab-grown diamond jewelry for undisclosed natural stones, noting that mixing had become increasingly common."During our routine grading process for laboratory-grown diamond jewelry, our team of experts [has] come across natural-diamond melee mixed into lab-grown diamond jewelry," said Debbie Azar, the organi...Read More
RAPAPORT PRESS RELEASE, January 19, 2021, New York... The Rapaport Group has released its Diamond Price Statistics Annual Report for 2020, evaluating the performance of polished-diamond prices. The report provides an in-depth analysis of the past year's trends, and compares the price changes within specific diamond categories.The Rapaport Diamond Index (RDI?,,?), which tracks changes in the R...Read More
London Metal Exchange lead and nickel made gains close to 1% during the afternoon trading session on Tuesday January 19, with a lower US dollar index giving metals some space to recuperate their forward prices. Lead's three-month price was up 0.9% to $2,015 per tonne at 5pm, an increase from $1,996.50 per tonne on Monday. The metal had been on a steady decline since reaching $2,051 per tonne...Read More
The London Metal Exchange and its clearing house are revisiting a proposal to transition to a different way of calculating its clearing methodology. The exchange announced its discussion paper on the topic on Tuesday January 19. The last attempt was made in 2017 and was rejected by LME members because it would make the provision of credit lines expensive and result in the rapid withdrawal of...Read More
RAPAPORT... Diamond jewelry is the most desired tangible luxury product among consumers under the age of 40, second only to vacations, according to a survey by the Natural Diamond Council (NDC).The majority of demographic groups picked vacations as the luxury item they would most want to buy or receive if money were no object, the NDC said Friday. Female purchasers and male recipients were th...Read More
RAPAPORT... The American Gem Society's (AGS) annual Conclave will return this year, with a live event in Dallas, Texas.The event will take place from September 12 to 14 at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel, AGS said last week. The event was originally set to run in Louisville, Kentucky, in April, but was postponed due to Covid-19. AGS scrapped the 2020 edition altogether.AGS will feature peer-to-peer lear...Read More
RAPAPORT... Sales at Luk Fook slid in the third fiscal quarter as a slump in the Hong Kong market outweighed a recovery on the mainland.Group-wide same-store sales - at branches open for at least a year - fell 29% year on year during the three months ending December 31, the retailer reported last week. Same-store sales in China rose 4% as the country brought the pandemic under control and gold pri...Read More
A summary of Brazilian base metals producer Nexa Resources' operational figures for the fourth quarter and full-year 2020, as stated in its production report published on Tuesday January 19.In brief Output in 2020 was within the revised full-year guidance provided in May after the company was forced to close some Peruvian mines due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mining production at Cerro Lindo, Atacoc...Read More
Covid-19 appears to have claimed another casualty: the London Metal Exchange ring trading floor. The closure of the floor, now entering its 144th year, has been proposed in a discussion paper issued by the exchange earlier on Tuesday January 19.The open outcry floor may be old, but it didn't appear to have serious underlying health issues. It has successfully fought back against talk it was set to...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Lucara has announced the recovery of an unbroken 341-carat diamond at Karowe in Botswana, bringing the mine's tally of stones over 200-carats to 54 since 2015.Earlier this month the Canadian miner had its lease on the deposit extended for 25 years, clearing the way for a major $500m underground expansion program.The top white gem quality diamond (pictured) was recovered over t...Read More
(IDEX Online) - De Beers has reportedly raised rough diamond prices by as much as five per cent at its first Sight of 2020.Insiders indicate that most of the increases affect stones over one carat, according to a Bloomberg news report. The scale of the price hike, described as the biggest in years, has surprised many within the industry. De Beers dropped its prices and started offering d...Read More
RAPAPORT... Diamonds Do Good (DDG) has named Rebecca Foerster as its new president. She will succeed Anna Martin, who is departing after a four-year term.Foerster, who is the president of Alrosa's US operations, was elected to the position after having served on the DDG board for 10 years and on its executive committee for the past four years, the organization said last week."I am very confident R...Read More
The London Metal Exchange is proposing the permanent closure of its open-outcry trading floor and the incentivization of greater liquidity on its electronic trading platform, LMESelect. The proposals, laid out in a new discussion paper on future market structure, also include potential changes to the exchange's margin methodology and the introduction of potential additional disclosures and policie...Read More
Additional price increases in the Brazilian flat steel market are possible due to the current low supply, but buyers are already cautious after a series of price gains, national flat steel distributors association Inda said."Steelmakers have their order books completely sold out until March, and some until April," Inda president Carlos Loureiro said.Some flat steel producers have announced 10% pri...Read More
Rebar buyers in the UAE have done deals this week at the higher prices announced last week, but there is little demand for billet imports because producers have ample stocks, sources told Fastmarkets on Tuesday January 19.And billet import activity is likely to remain slow for another week or two, depending on local demand for rebar, they added.Domestic rebarThe country's steel producers...Read More