The past year was a difficult one overall for the metals, with the main standouts to the upside being a geopolitical risk-driven gain in gold, a China-driven rise in iron ore and a surge in uranium on broadening global support for nuclear power (Figure 1). A jump in global interest rates to near two-decade highs saw recession fears persist all year, and while one still did not actually eru...Read More

This year the post-global health crisis boom was brought to an end by a surge in inflation to forty-year highs, a major rise in global interest rates in an attempt to curb the rising prices and surging geopolitical risk after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While precious metals held up reasonably well as markets turned to them as a risk hedge, by Q2/22 the higher interest rates put an end t...Read More

Chile is the world leader in copper production, at 28.5% of the total in 2020, and this looks set to continue, with the country having the largest global reserves, at 23.0% of total. It is also the global leader for molybdenum, which is often found along with copper, and is a major lithium player, holding 51.1% of global reserves. Read More

Newfoundland has become a gold exploration hotspot over the past few years, with the sector seeing some of its strongest activity ever. While the province remains a small contributor to Canadian gold production, it has a substantial mineral industry well supported by the government, focused on iron ore, copper and nickel, and the surge in exploration suggests that gold output from the...Read More

Nevada is the core of the U.S. gold output, accounting for by far the majority, at 75.4% on average for the past year. The state looks set to remain a dominant player in U.S. gold, as it accounts for 49% of total U.S. reserves, with Alaska slightly ahead with 51% of reserves, but just 8.6% of current production. The U.S. accounts for 6.1% of global gold output, making Nevada one of the largest gol...Read More

The Golden Triangle in northwestern British Columbia has historically been a major site of Canadian gold production, beginning as early as the mid 1800s. There was a wave of production in the 1990s which cooled as the gold price declined, but larger scale production resumed in 2017, and the area has seen surging exploration interest over the past year, given that the region has some of the largest...Read More

In this report we outline the Quebec gold mining industry, including its major producers, and a survey of many of the junior miners focused on the province. Quebec accounts for 34% of Canadian gold production (second to Ontario, with 44%) and remains a major focus for both producers and junior miners.Read More

Red Lake has been one of the most prolific gold mining districts in Canada and the world, with exploration having started in the 1920s, and production, which began in the 1930s, continuing to the present day. The district is known for the high grade of its gold, its infrastructure, and strong institutional support, given the long history of mining in the area.Read More

How does a man descend into bankruptcy?Gradually then suddenly in Mr. Hemingway's famous telling.The United States government has passed beyond bankruptcy's gradual phase.It has entered bankruptcy's sudden phase.Mr. Michael Hartnett, Bank of America's chief strategist:“The U.S. national debt is rising by $1 trillion every 100 days.”United States debt first scaled $1 trillion 205 ye...Read More

Yesterday was "Super Tuesday," when 15 states and one U.S. territory held presidential primaries.As expected, Joe Biden won on the Democratic side. Also unexpectedly, Trump won the Republican primaries "bigly."Nikki Haley has finally seen the writing on the wall and dropped out of the race.The only two primaries she won, and it tells you everything you need to know, were the Washington, D.C. swamp...Read More

The bears are giving up.No one's betting against the raging rally anymore as the mega-cap tech leaders continue to climb to new highs.The YOLO crew is back to making huge, bullish bets on earnings and loading up on speculative options buys. As stocks continue to squeeze higher, these speculators are cashing in on their wild, out-of-the money calls. Let the good times roll! Just how frothy is it ge...Read More

The big news today is that the Supreme Court unanimously agreed, in a 9-0 vote, that Colorado could not keep Trump off the state's primary ballot.It also prevents other states like Maine and Illinois, which have also moved to keep Trump off the ballot, from doing so.Today's unanimous ruling is not a surprise to me. The Colorado Supreme Court's ruling to bar Trump from the ballot was so egregious I...Read More

The florid carbuncle of Woke-Maoist lawfare weeps its vile effluvium across the social landscape, poisoning whatever it touches, and nothing in the armory of reason, principle or good faith avails to heal it.Sickness rages through the body politic. You have lost faith in all the doctors, and they have lost faith in themselves. The fever intensifies. The crisis is upon us. Which way will fate turn...Read More

Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD), the second-biggest gold miner by market value, this month poured its first gold in Papua New Guinea in nearly four years as CEO Mark Bristow marked another turnaround in a career coupling value investing with local partnerships.The Porgera mine in the hills of the Pacific island country was under care and maintenance from April 2020 to December 2023 while Barri...Read More

In a lifetime of observing policy controversies and court cases, I've never witnessed anything as crucial to the future of the idea of freedom itself compared with what will transpire on March 18, 2024.On that day, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Murthy v. Missouri concerning whether the government can force or nudge private companies to censor users on behalf of regime priorities.The evi...Read More

Liberal: A supporter of a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy and free enterprise.There you have the dictionary's liberal, Mr. Webster's liberal.This liberal is a spacious and tolerant fellow. This fellow is all right.His liberalism is... if we can say it for ourself... the liberalism of The Daily Reckoning.We are with Mr. Jefferson:"It does...Read More

At some point, systems flip from being complicated, which is a challenge to manage, to being complex. Complexity is more than a challenge because it opens the door to all kinds of unexpected crashes and events.Their behavior cannot be reduced to their component parts. It's as if they take on a life of their own.Complexity theory has four main pillars. The first is the diversity of actors. You've g...Read More

Never before have so many... owed so much... to so few.We refer not to Mr. Churchill's hosannas to the Royal Air Force concerning 1940's Battle of Britain.We refer instead to the 2024 Battle of Bulls and Bears... to the stock market.Never have so many investors owed so much of their money to so few stocks.That is because a mere spoonful of stocks are hauling stocks to record heights.These stocks...Read More

It's bad enough that Joe Biden is the worst president in US history.That Antony Blinken is a terrible Secretary of State makes matters worse. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin can't be bothered to clock in nowadays. Attorney General Merrick Garland leaves no impression he'd have been a great SCOTUS justice, seeing his Department of Justice isn't worthy of its name. And due in no small part to Nati...Read More

Although my focus is on markets rather than politics, it's impossible to forecast markets without understanding what's going on in the political realm. While there are important Senate and House races this year, all eyes are focused on the presidential race likely (as of now) to be between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.A Trump vs. Biden (if he makes it) replay of the 2020 election could be close and...Read More

Yesterday we asked:Which democracy was superior, we asked modern American democracy or ancient Athenian democracy?We slanted in the direction of Athenian democracy.That is because Athenian democracy minded its money.Athenian democracy amassed a handsome budgetary surplus... over which the citizens themselves stood watch.They could have gotten their hands upon this vast amassing. Yet they did n...Read More

“Democracy never lasts long,” warned old Johnny Adams long ago.“It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself,” Mr. Adams added.Your editor has himself stretched democracy upon his vivisection table... and upon examination discovered a deeply diseased patient.Its blood stagnates in pools. Its liver reveals excessive alcoholic intake. Its brain manifests an advanced dementia.Y...Read More

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.But if this adage is accurate, shouldn't most investors buy a one-way ticket to their local looney bin?Perhaps this is an insensitive comment. Let me clarify: I don't really believe all investors are nuts. Even if they were, I'm pretty sure most of the country's mental asylums shuttered...Read More

Today we bear the gravest news:Elements of the United States government will "shut down" midnight Friday absent bipartisan resolution to keep it in funds.Some 20% of the federal apparatus will be padlocked and chained.And as Uncle Samuel's doors swing shut... Pandora's hellish box will swing open.You will have each and every species of calamity on your hands.Chaos and old night? You will have it...Read More

We are living through one of history's longest and most excruciating versions of "We told you so."When in March 2020, the world's governments decided to "shut down" the world's economies and throttle any and all social activity, and deny kids schooling plus cancel worship services and holidays, there was no end to the warnings of the terrible collateral damage, even if most of them were censored.E...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Prices fell during February after what now appears to have been a false start to the recovery in December. Losses dominated among almost all sizes of goods, much as they did during January. Demand is slow and markets are quiet after the holiday season, Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year. Rough supply remains slow (De Beers sold just $370m in January). Miners say there wi...Read More

Ideologies sound wonderful in the abstract, but run aground in the granular real world. The dominant ideology in the world today isn’t a political ideology, it’s the ideology of the market.In this ideology, the market is presented as the ideal problem-solving mechanism, as the interplay of supply and demand and the free flow of capital and labor will automatically fill unmet demand wit...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Tiffany & Co tops the list of jewlery brands sold on the e-commerce marketplace 1stDibs.Cartier takes second place, followed by Van Cleef and Arpels, Bulgari and David Yurman in the company's first Jewelry Trend Report.The US-based company said Art Deco engagement rings were the most popular (49 per cent of orders) followed by Contemporary, Edwardian, Retro ad Artisan.Roun...Read More