Poor Jerome Powell. This unlikely Atlas bears all the world's weight upon his slender shoulders.We hazard he ages one year for each torturous day he lives.Anything he mumbles - or fails to mumble - can send markets careening.Early yesterday afternoon, he mumbled something to The Wall Street Journal:We expect that as the economy reopens and hopefully picks up, we will see inflation move up through...Read More

"The financial memory," argued John Kenneth Galbraith, "should be assumed to last, at a maximum, no more than 20 years."Why 20 years?This is normally the time it takes for the recollection of one disaster to be erased and for some variant on previous dementia to come forward to capture the financial mind. It is also the time generally required for a new generation to enter the scene, impressed, as...Read More

After World War II, as the economy was converted from a garrison state to meet civilian needs, economists predicted dire times.Just as after World War I, conventional academic wisdom saw no upside to the end of wartime spending that, according to academic legend, ended the Great Depression.A sweeping Republican victory in the Congressional election of 1946 had ended the economic regime of wartime...Read More

What's the price of gold?That seems like a ridiculously easy question to answer. I'm looking at a trading screen right now, and it displays a price of $1,733.80 per ounce.That price may change a bit by the time you read this, but it would only take a fresh glance at the screen to get the new price. Case closed.What's the price of silver? Again, the question seems easy to answer. My trading screen...Read More

The London Metal Exchange's latest off-warrant inventories data showed a decrease of 46% in total zinc stocks, while lead inventories more than doubled in the month of January.The total amount of material held outside of the LME network increased by 2.5% during the first month of the year to 1.93 million tonnes, after a decrease of 3.9% to 1.88 million tonnes in December.Aluminium remains the bigg...Read More

I'm not some technophobe who doesn't understand cryptocurrencies. I know them very well. I've been studying cryptos since before many of their current owners even heard of Bitcoin. I actually worked with the intelligence community years ago to counter ISIS's use of cryptocurrencies to bypass the international monetary system.I can tell you that as an asset, Bitcoin has very little to offer outside...Read More

Bitcoin crashed from $20,000 in 2017 all the way to $3,300 by December 2018 - an 83.5% collapse in one year and the greatest recorded asset price collapse in history.That crash marked the collapse of the greatest asset price bubble in history, larger even than the Tulipmania of 1637.Well, now Bitcoin is trading around $50,000 (the price currently is $48,595.50), 2.5 times its 2017 peak.It's a safe...Read More

Over 300,000 tonnes of aluminium were delivered into London Metal Exchange warehouses in Port Klang on Thursday March 11, while price gains wereplentiful for all base metals due to a record-setting Dow Jones index.A total of 332,975 tonnes of aluminium was delivered into Port Klang. The delivery was a combination of ingots, sows and t-bars - with 69% of the delivery in ingots. It is the biggest in...Read More

China's domestic rebar prices continued to drop on Thursday March 11 on soft demand caused by rain in the country's eastern and southern regions. DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 4,610-4,630 yuan ($709-713) per tonne, down by 20 yuan per tonne Stockists lowered their prices to draw down their inventories, but trading activity did not pick up despite that due to bad weather. End users bought limit...Read More

Stakeholders across the copper value chain need to collaborate to drive widespread adoption of responsible production and consumption, participants at a panel discussion said at the Fastmarkets Copper Seminar on Thursday March 11.Speakers at "The green transition: Responsible copper production" panel on Thursday highlighted the great strides made in consumer and investor interest in responsible pr...Read More

The Cobalt alloy grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lbtrade log including business, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets publishes trades logs for its key price assessments and indices to bring more transparencyinto the markets it covers and the pricing process it applies.Fastmarkets assessed Cobalt alloy grade, in-whs Rotterdam,...Read More

The Cobalt standard grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lb trade log including business, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets publishes trades logs for its key price assessments and indices to bring more transparencyinto the markets it covers and the pricing process it applies.Fastmarkets assessed Cobalt standard grade, in-whs...Read More

Key data from the Wednesday March 10 pricing session in London and Shanghai.Key drivers Cobalt hydroxide payables edged slightly lower in the first half of this week with consumers either on the sidelines, wary of recent turns in the downstream...Read More

China's stainless steel prices continued to fall in the week ended Wednesday March 10 due to demand being subdued by a pessimistic outlook. Slumping nickel futures sparked bearish sentiment in the stainless steel market, sources said.The three-month nickel contract on the London Metal Exchange ended the official session on Wednesday at $16,080 per tonne, down by $1,784 per tonne - or 10% - from $1...Read More

"From where I sit, the opportunity in front of us is huge," BHP's (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP; ASX: BHP) chief technical officer Laura Tyler told the PDAC's virtual convention. "I see great prosperity as we collaborate to discover the commodities of the future ... faster, more efficiently, and more sustainably than ever before."Speaking from Adelaide in Australia, Tyler noted that the last year had been...Read More

London-based Rio Tinto (L:RIO) has signed an agreement to provide the first commercial batch of aluminum-scandium alloy to Amaero, a leader in metal additive manufacturing.The alloy - given the brand name of Element North 21 - will be delivered by the Rio Tinto Fer et Titane metallurgical complex in Sorel-Tracy, Que. The delivery will be made as alloy billets, and Amaero will process them into pow...Read More

Rio Tinto has signed an agreement to provide a first commercial batch of aluminium-scandium alloy from its North American operations to Australia-based metal additive manufacturer Amaero International Ltd.The company will deliver alloy billets made of low-carbon aluminium from its hydro-powered Canadian smelters and high purity scandium oxide from its Rio Tinto Fer et Titane (RTFT) metallurgical c...Read More

S&P Global Market Intelligence's annual World Exploration Trends Report was released this week and shows that the global budget for nonferrous metals exploration decreased 11% to an estimated $8.7 billion in 2020 from $9.8 billion in 2019.The total exploration budget of $8.7 billion includes estimates for companies budgeting less than $100,000 and private companies. Over half of that amount was de...Read More

The front-end loading engineering (FEL-1) analysis for the second phase of Nouveau Monde Graphite's (TSXV:NOU; OTCOX:NMGRF; FRANKFURT:NM9) lithium-ion anode project in B?(C)cancour, Que., is complete. The study concludes that the new plant will produce 42,000 tonnes of anode material and 3,000 tonnes of purified flake graphite can be produced annually. It will also produce micronized graphite by-p...Read More

Franco-Nevada's (TSX, NYSE: FNV) fourth-quarter and full-year results release includes 'record' annual results, two new stream and royalty additions as well as a 15.4% increase to the quarterly dividend, starting in June.The company has also announced that it has adopted a goal of at least 40% of diverse representation at the board and senior management levels.Last year, Franco-Nevada sold 521,564...Read More