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

Sukari gold mine, located 700 km from Cairo. (Image courtesy of Centamin)Shares in gold producer Centamin (LON:CEY) (TSX:CEE) dropped Thursday, diving as much as 4.7% in early trading in London, as the Egypt-focused miner said it expected to produce 420,000 ounces of gold at its at its flagship Sukari mine this year, missing some analyst expectations.Production at the mine, however, climbed 40%...Read More

Germany's Angela Merkel needs a dressing down, not the red carpet treatment… Angela Merkel, who visits Britain this week, is a huge success in Germany, but in Europe she is a destructive failure who is damaging her own country as much as others … – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: Angela Merkel is a leader who can deliver.Free-Market Analysis: This article is a good example...Read More

The Atlantic Suburbs and the New American Poverty … More people with low incomes now live outside of cities, and some areas are ill-equipped to deal with the influx of the poor … Between 2000 and 2011, Atlanta's suburban poor population grew by 159 percent. But the suburbs of Atlanta no longer hold just the promise of good schools, clean streets, and whitewashed homes with manicure...Read More

Germany's Angela Merkel needs a dressing down, not the red carpet treatment… Angela Merkel, who visits Britain this week, is a huge success in Germany, but in Europe she is a destructive failure who is damaging her own country as much as others … – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: Angela Merkel is a leader who can deliver.Free-Market Analysis: This article is a good example...Read More

The Atlantic Suburbs and the New American Poverty … More people with low incomes now live outside of cities, and some areas are ill-equipped to deal with the influx of the poor … Between 2000 and 2011, Atlanta's suburban poor population grew by 159 percent. But the suburbs of Atlanta no longer hold just the promise of good schools, clean streets, and whitewashed homes with manicure...Read More

A grand Tory-Labour coalition might be good for British business … A Conservative-Labour government is unlikely. But, were it to happen, the worst excesses of the two main parties might cancel each other out … – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: What we need mostly is wise leaders, not party politics.Free-Market Analysis: The technocracy meme constantly reemerges. In this case w...Read More

When is insider trading against the law? It's a trick question: There is no actual law against insider trading. This became painfully clear last month when a federal appeals court tossed out the criminal convictions of two Wall Street hedge-fund managers who had been found guilty of the offense about two years ago. The court not only exonerated the traders, but also called into question the en...Read More

A grand Tory-Labour coalition might be good for British business … A Conservative-Labour government is unlikely. But, were it to happen, the worst excesses of the two main parties might cancel each other out … – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: What we need mostly is wise leaders, not party politics.Free-Market Analysis: The technocracy meme constantly reemerges. In this case w...Read More

When is insider trading against the law? It's a trick question: There is no actual law against insider trading. This became painfully clear last month when a federal appeals court tossed out the criminal convictions of two Wall Street hedge-fund managers who had been found guilty of the offense about two years ago. The court not only exonerated the traders, but also called into question the en...Read More

It Was a Pivotal Year in TPP Activism but the Biggest Fight Is Still to Come … A draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership's (TPP) Intellectual Property chapter from May 2014 leaked this past fall, confirming what previous leaks had suggested: this so-called trade agreement would bring copyright enforcement provisions that threaten users' right to free expression, privacy, and unfettere...Read More

World faces low inflation threat not seen since before WWII … Analysts are predicting that inflation will fall below 2pc in all of the countries that make up the G7 group of advanced nations this year. Central banks need to work fast to stop the world falling into a deflationary spiral … If inflation falls as low across the G7 as economists expect it to, this year will bring one of the...Read More

It Was a Pivotal Year in TPP Activism but the Biggest Fight Is Still to Come … A draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership's (TPP) Intellectual Property chapter from May 2014 leaked this past fall, confirming what previous leaks had suggested: this so-called trade agreement would bring copyright enforcement provisions that threaten users' right to free expression, privacy, and unfettere...Read More

World faces low inflation threat not seen since before WWII … Analysts are predicting that inflation will fall below 2pc in all of the countries that make up the G7 group of advanced nations this year. Central banks need to work fast to stop the world falling into a deflationary spiral … If inflation falls as low across the G7 as economists expect it to, this year will bring one of the...Read More

How can we make capitalism more popular? Individual investors should have access to tech start-up IPOs, giving the public a stake in capitalism, says Xavier Rolet, the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange … Capitalism has taken a pummeling over the last few years. From the global credit crunch to the banking failures, the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) and beyond,...Read More

The Rise and Fall of Gold … King Midas lusted after it. The Incas worshipped it. Shiny flakes of it set off a 19th-century rush to California and ship captains never stop looking for it at the bottom of the sea. While gold has ignited passions for centuries, for today's investors, it seems, the metal has been losing its allure. After surging sevenfold during a 12-year bull market —...Read More

How can we make capitalism more popular? Individual investors should have access to tech start-up IPOs, giving the public a stake in capitalism, says Xavier Rolet, the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange … Capitalism has taken a pummeling over the last few years. From the global credit crunch to the banking failures, the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) and beyond,...Read More

The Rise and Fall of Gold … King Midas lusted after it. The Incas worshipped it. Shiny flakes of it set off a 19th-century rush to California and ship captains never stop looking for it at the bottom of the sea. While gold has ignited passions for centuries, for today's investors, it seems, the metal has been losing its allure. After surging sevenfold during a 12-year bull market —...Read More

So high expectations, so few riders … Criticizing economics for not being scientific enough is a crime of which many of us – I've done it – are guilty. But there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. Alex Rosenberg and Tyler Curtain, writing in the New York Times, have done it the wrong way. – BloombergDominant Social Theme: Economics is a great tool for...Read More

Greek expulsion from the euro would demolish EMU's contagion firewall … Should EMU leaders choose to cut off liquidity support for the Greek banking system they might find that their contagion defences are a fiction. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: Greece is now irrelevant to the financial health of the euro and the EU. EU defenses, as painfully placed as the Maginot Line, wil...Read More

So high expectations, so few riders … Criticizing economics for not being scientific enough is a crime of which many of us – I've done it – are guilty. But there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. Alex Rosenberg and Tyler Curtain, writing in the New York Times, have done it the wrong way. – BloombergDominant Social Theme: Economics is a great tool for...Read More