Lower offer prices for flat steel from China to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia made buyers postpone booking during the week to Tuesday May 25, sources told Fastmarkets.Demand was expected to improve in the countries after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, but buyers are opting to wait and see if price decreases will continue, Fastmarkets heard."We are planning to make some bookings nex...Read More

Billet export prices in the Commonwealth of Independent States weakened further during the week to Tuesday May 25, with buyers still holding back from trading activity amid a falling Chinese import billet market.Fastmarkets' assessment of the steel billet domestic price, ex-works Tangshan, Northern China has fallen sharply week on week to 4,940 yuan ($768.44) per tonne on Tuesday, down 600 yuan fr...Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange were mainly positive on the morning of Tuesday May 25, with only SHFE lead showing significant weakness.* Broader markets seem to have become more risk on again after US central bankers stuck to their dovish guidance.* Asia-Pacific equities were firmer this morning, especially in China where government action has calmed...Read More

Steel billet buyers in Southeast Asia are sat on the sidelines again amid further declines in the Chinese market, sources told Fastmarkets on Tuesday May 25.Continued declines in China's steel futures and physical markets this week, underpinned by the Chinese government's aim of cooling commodity prices, has led to radio silence in the China steel billet markets.Offers for Indonesian 3sp 150mm bla...Read More

China must rely on innovation-driven technological growth to achieve high-quality development, Shusong Ba, managing director and chief China economist at Hong Kong Exchange & Clearing (HKEX), said during the London Metal Exchange Asia 2021 Metals Seminar on Tuesday May 25.During his speech, Ba pointed out that although China's gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2021 increased by...Read More

China's hot-rolled coil export prices fell significantly on Tuesday May 25, following the recent sharp decline in domestic prices and the resulting uptick in sales.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 5,430-5,440 yuan ($848-850) per tonne,down by 10 yuan per tonneSellers cut domestic HRC prices slightly on Tuesday to encourage higher sales volumes following futures losses, sources said.Stockists plan...Read More

U.S. equity index futures were higher this morning. S&P 500 futures were up 14 points in pre-opening trade. The TSX Composite Index also is expected to open higher reflecting strength in U.S. equity indices yesterday and strong increases in Far East equity markets in overnight trade. Notable was a 2.40% increase in the Shanghai Composite Index led by gains in the technology sector. Amazon gain...Read More

If you like roller coaster rides, then you should love Bitcoin. Bitcoin investors have been on a stomach-churning ride for the past few months.Bitcoin traded at $33,537 on February 1 before really taking off. By mid-April, it topped out at around $64,829 before sliding down.Last Wednesday, Bitcoin suffered a single-day collapse of 30%. Then, yesterday afternoon, Bitcoin plunged sharply to $31,227,...Read More

Beneath all the psychotic babble that's afflicting the collective national hive-mind over a pandemic that comes and goes in waves, and phantoms of contrived identity animus, looms an economy that would collapse without gigantic IV infusions of "money" from the false god that our government has become.The collapse is working its way out in strange ways as we create ever stranger work-arounds for av...Read More

Today we stagger into the Minotaur's maze of money...It may be familiar space to you. But a man must occasionally remind himself of his surroundings... fix his bearings... take stock of his position.And so we proceed…You sink your hand into your wallet. It resurfaces grasping a $20 bill.This bill is an asset to you, its holder. It represents a claim upon goods and services.But this asset of...Read More

Turkish steel mills skipped the second working day of the week with no deep-sea bookings amid negative signals from the Chinese steel industry, market participants told Fastmarkets on Tuesday May 25.The most recent deep-sea transactions were done at the end of the last week, when a steel mill in the Iskenderun region booked a mixed cargo from the Europe at an average price of $516 per tonne cfr. T...Read More

Exports of iron ore from India's east coast could face minor disruptions after the key port of Paradip in the state of Odisha suspended operations on Tuesday May 25 due to an incoming cyclone, sources said.Port operations at Paradip were stopped at 2pm Indian Standard Time (IST) on May 25. Port operations were also ceased at Haldia, Kolkata and Dharma.Cyclone Yaas was situated about 220km south-so...Read More

The Chinese government has published an action plan to include a commodity price stability mechanism as part of the country's 14th Five-Year Plan that runs from 2021 to 2025. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's economic planning body, put forward a document named "Action plan to deepen the reform of pricing mechanism in the 14th Five-Year Plan" on Tuesday...Read More

A handful of recent cargoes of shredded steel scrap have successfully cleared through Chinese ports, raising hopes across the market that China may start to import more of this key material grade in the near future.Since China reopened its import scrap market in January, very strict standards have largely limited trades to high-grade heavy scrap (HS) from Japan and South Korea, and some parcels of...Read More

Seaborne iron ore prices rose on Tuesday May 25, on support from a trading activity recovery in the physical market, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets iron ore indices62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $192.87 per tonne, up $0.45 per tonne62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $194.49 per tonne, up $0.62 per tonne58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $165.02 per tonne, up $1.55 per tonne65% Fe...Read More

High freight rates are pushing prices along the aluminium supply chain to multi-year highs, but there is one area where it is having the opposite effect: alumina.Alumina prices have been under pressure because of oversupply and high freight costs deterring buyers in China from importing despite low prices.Fastmarkets assessed its daily benchmark alumina index, fob Australia at $274.15 per tonne on...Read More

Base metal prices on the London Metal Exchange were little changed during morning trading on Tuesday May 25 from Monday's closing prices, with the complex consolidating following a month of peaks and declines.Nickel's three-month price, which recorded the highest rise in percentage terms among the base metals on Monday of 1.9%, was down slightly to $17,095 per tonne from its previous close at $17,...Read More

Sellers in China's domestic rebar market stopped lowering prices on Tuesday May 25, which led to a pick-up in end-user demand.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 4,900-4,920 yuan ($762-765) per tonne, unchangedThe stable prices encouraged contractors in the construction sector to replenish their inventories during the day. But transacted tonnages were not large because these buyers are not too bulli...Read More

The Shanghai Futures Exchange has allowed Glencore's Nikkelverk nickel brand to be physically deliverable as a registered brand against its nickel futures contracts as of May 21, the exchange said.Nikkelverk is a branded electrolytic nickel (Ni 99.80, electrowinning) produced by Glencore Nikkelverk, a wholly owned subsidiary of Glencore Canada, which has registered capacity of 80,000 tonnes, the S...Read More

The current bullish commodities market is mainly driven by a supply-demand mismatch during a pandemic instead of a super cycle, panelists said at the LME Asia Metal Seminar 2021 on Tuesday May 25.An energy transition is also driving demand and price momentum for some metals, they said."The [increased] metals price resulted from a disconnect between supply and demand, because demand for metals is r...Read More