BEIJING, Nov 3 (Reuters) - China will strengthen personal protections in the financial technology sector to curb unauthorised data collection and abuses, the country's central bank chief said on Wednesday.Beijing will improve the legal frameworks in the sector and countries should jointly set standards for personal data protection, People's Bank of China Governor Yi Gang said via video at the Hong...Read More

SYDNEY, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AX) will become the country's first main-street bank to offer a platform for retail customers to trade cryptocurrencies, breaking industry ranks as it looks to match offerings from rival fintech firms.Australia's biggest lender said it will partner with New York-based exchange Gemini Trust Company LLC to offer a "crypto exchange and c...Read More

FAIRFAX, Va. (Reuters) - Republicans pushed Democrats out of the Virginia governorship and were running even in heavily Democratic New Jersey on Wednesday, signaling trouble for President Joe Biden's party heading into next year's congressional elections.Republican Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity executive, claimed victory over Democratic former Governor Terry McAuliffe in Tuesday's vote a...Read More

MADRID, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Alphabet (GOOGL.O) plans to reopen its Google News service in Spain early next year after the government passed new legislation that allows media outlets to negotiate directly with the tech giant, the company said on Wednesday.The service closed in 2014 after the government passed a rule that forced Alphabet and other news aggregators to pay a collective licensing fee t...Read More

After sitting on the sidelines for much of last year, central bank appetite for gold has resumed, in part due to inflationary pressures globally along with disruptions in the energy market.Russia recently reached a milestone record for its gold reserves, now ranking fifth in the world for the size of its holdings.Russia now holds well over 20% of its reserves in gold! This represents nearly 2,300...Read More

So, QE ended (so far in Canada, but the Fed will follow suit) and the termination plunged gold prices in Canadian dollars. Will this repeat globally?Finally! Yesterday (October 27, 2021), one central bank ended its quantitative easing program after gradually reducing the pace of asset purchases earlier this year. Don’t panic though - it wasn’t the Fed, nor the ECB, nor the Bank of Jap...Read More

Steel prices in the United States are poised to continue decreasing at a slow pace in the coming months, Luxembourg-based steelmaker Ternium said on Wednesday November 3.Supply and demand fundamentals have started to normalize in the country, but remain far from balance, according to Ternium chief executive officer M??ximo Vedoya.Among the drivers for lower prices, the CEO cited capacity usage in...Read More

Oil prices rose again on Tuesday,approaching multi-year highs amid concerns over steadily shrinking US crudereserves.FundamentalAnalysis U.S. API Weekly Crude Oil Stock: Inventory levels of US crude oil, gasoline and distillates stocks, AmericanPetroleum Institute (API) via InvestingRegarding the API figures publishedTuesday, the increase in crude inventories (with 2.318 million barrels versus1.65...Read More

Precious metals expert Michael Ballanger delves into the Federal Reserve's actions going back decades that affect the price of gold.One of the benefits (or luxuries) of being removed from the commuting rat-race of my earlier life is the ability to devote large swaths of free time to reading – to the acquisition of either new sources of knowledge or new frameworks of opinion, neither of which...Read More

The north China steel production hub of Handan city in Hebei province has implemented stricter production cuts at steel mills from Monday November 1 to November 7.The move has been made is to mitigate weather-influenced air pollution over the period and comes just after the city finished implmenting steel production curbs in September and October to limit the crude steel output in line with China'...Read More

Thanksgiving is a time to appreciate the food on our tables, but that probably isn’t stopping a lot of people from grumbling about how expensive the turkey and all the fixings have become.According to Statistics Canada, food prices are up 2.5% over the past year, but that may be underestimating the impact of inflation. New research from Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, q...Read More

Eurofer has welcomed the agreement between the European Union and the United States to replace Section 232 steel and aluminium tariffs against the bloc's 27 countries with tariff-rate quotas, the European steel association said on Monday November 1.The US authorities made theannouncement, on Saturday October 30."We welcome the announcement of the agreement which could be the starting point of a ne...Read More

With the S&P 500 back at itsall-time highs, gold stopped lagging behind. However, how long can thisunsustainable growth last?TheFOMO Rally While the S&P500 has demonstrated a resounding ability to shake off bad news, anepic divergence has developed between positioning and economic expectations.And while ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) keeps sentiment near the high-end of itsrange,...Read More

Evergrande is on the brink of bankruptcy. Will gold prices collapse together with the real estate developer or benefit from its default?Generals are always prepared to fight the last war, while economists are always prepared to fight the last recession. But what if the next economic crisis doesn’t start in the US financial sector, but in China’s real estate?Naturally, I refer to Evergr...Read More

An overview of the specialty steel raw materials markets in Europe and their latest price moves.Alex Cook, Dalila Ouerghi...Read More

Europe's domestic prices for heavy plate rose sharply in the week to Wednesday November 3 due to strong demand and surging production costs, sources told Fastmarkets.Energy prices have increased substantially across Europe, adding pressure on steel prices. A number of producers that have long-term agreements for electricity will have to renegotiate new contracts starting in January 2022, sources s...Read More

The gold miners’ latestquarterly earnings season will soon get underway, with their full Q3’21 resultsdue out by mid-November.  These fundamentalreports are invaluable to traders, revealing how companies are actually faringoperationally and financially.  Despite Fed-tighteningfears hammering gold and gold stocks last quarter, the miners are likely to collectivelyreport outsta...Read More

The price of steel hollow sections in Europe moved down on Wednesday November 3, with the market seeking the floor after recent price drops, sources have told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets' price assessment for steel sections (medium) domestic, delivered Northern Europe was ?,?1,150- 1,250 ($1,333-1,449) per tonne on Wednesday, down from ?,?1,230-1,275 per tonne one week previous.Market sources hav...Read More

You see, there is all this noise out there. It comes mostly from inflationists touting gold in the same breath as copper, as oil, and as commodities of all flavors (and aside from gold and to a degree, silver, those flavors are cyclical).But you also see, gold is counter-cyclical in its best suit. You see on this monthly chart that gold has been forming its Handle to the bullish Cup ever since the...Read More

Kickingthe can down the road is the new national pastime. Every time the government’sbills come due, officials at the Treasury Department find creative ways ofpaying them with money they don’t have.Onemeasure of just how overextended the United States has become financially isthe debt to GDP ratio. For most of the country’s history, excluding temporarywartime blips, net general g...Read More