The gold-to-silver has broken down below 100. Here's why the metals are on the move to start the week...Silver is wasting no time at the start of this week.In fact, it started last night.On Sunday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell was on the CBS television show 60 Minutes to discuss a wide number of monetary issues, including negative interest rates.Suffice to say this "interview" was well scripted and eac...Read More
Three-month base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange rallied at the close of trading on Monday May 18, with positive risk sentiment emerging from a continued easing of Covid-19 market concerns, while copper, nickel and zinc futures all breached nearby resistance levels.Copper's outright price on the LME closed at $5,317 per tonne on Monday afternoon, climbing by more than 2.6% from an intra...Read More
Copper stocks at Shanghai bonded warehouses continued to decline on Monday May 18, falling closer to Fastmarkets' all-time low of 250,000 tonnes, which was posted in October 2015. Fastmarkets assessed Shanghai bonded copper stocks at 250,000-260,000 tonnes on May 18, down by 13.9% from 291,000-301,000 tonnes on May 4.The opening of an arbitrage window between Shanghai and London boo...Read More
Seaborne iron ore prices continued to gain ground on Monday May 18, after a rise in steel prices over the preceding weekend.Fastmarkets iron ore indices62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $96.84 per tonne, up by $3.19 per tonne.62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $99.53 per tonne, up by $3.20 per tonne.58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $82.56 per tonne, up by $2.93 per tonne.65% Fe Brazil-or...Read More
RAPAPORT... De Beers has appointed Sally Morrison director of public relations for natural diamonds. The long-serving branding specialist has been chief marketing officer for the company's lab-grown line, Lightbox, since 2017.Based in New York, Morrison will sit within De Beers' consumer and brands division, focusing on media, trade and designer outreach for natural diamonds, with an emphasis...Read More
RAPAPORT... Jewelry was the top gift US moms received this Mother's Day, with most consumers purchasing online due to store closures, according to a survey by MVI Marketing.Some 57% of husbands who bought their wives a Mother's Day gift purchased jewelry, while 13% gave their partners a watch. Meanwhile, 31% of daughters and 47% of sons bought their mothers jewelry for the holiday. Other popu...Read More
RAPAPORT... E-commerce sales at Michael Hill reached an all-time high in late April and early May as the Australia-based retailer responded to changing consumer attitudes amid the coronavirus pandemic.Digital revenues for the three weeks ending May 14 broke a record the company set during the 2019 Christmas season, it reported Thursday."The surge in our digital sales signals a notable shift i...Read More
RAPAPORT... The decline in US retail sales intensified in April as COVID-19 forced stores to shut, according to data the National Retail Federation (NRF) reported.Revenues plunged 22% year on year, and fell 16% compared to March, which had already posted a record-setting 8% month-on-month drop. The NRF based these numbers on official data from the US Census Bureau. April's figures could be im...Read More
Following initial research and consultation with market participants, Fastmarkets proposes to launch a weekly price assessment for tantalum concentrate.The introduction of a price assessment for tantalite, basis 25% Ta2O5, ex-works China, will expand Fastmarkets' current price coverage of raw materials.Tantalum prices have found support in the past two months from supply tightness and concerns abo...Read More
(IDEX Online) - The price of super-rare pink diamonds is to set to rocket with the forthcoming closure of the Argyle mine in Western Australia, which has been responsible for 90 per cent of world supplies.Owners Rio Tinto plan to cease production by the end of 2020, when economically-viable reserves will run out.The value of pink diamonds sold at its annual tenders has been appreciating by an aver...Read More
RAPAPORT... As diamond markets start to return, the Rapaport News team discusses prospects for the industry in the latest episode of the Rapaport Diamond Podcast. We discuss the extent to which things have fundamentally changed in the past two months and what that means for the trade in the coronavirus era. We assess whether the industry will maintain its sense of community in the new virtual...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Over 80 per cent of the world's diamond reserves are held by just three countries - Russia, Congo and Botswana - according to new estimates.There are 1.1 billion carats of unmined diamonds globally, says the London-based finance publication Learnbonds. More than half (52 per cent) are in Russia, 13 per cent in Congo and eight per cent in Botswana.The research says product...Read More
Weak end-user demand pushed European vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) prices lower again last week while supply worries have slowly started to ease with mines in South Africa gradually opening up, market sources said.Fastmarkets assessed the vanadium pentoxide 98% V2O5 min, in-warehouse Rotterdam price at $5.50-6.40 per lb on Friday May 15, down by 13.5% from the previous assessment of $6.50-7.25 per lb....Read More
Three-month base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange rallied at the close of trading on Monday May 18, with positive risk sentiment emerging from a continued easing of Covid-19 market concerns, while copper, nickel and zinc futures all breached nearby resistance levels.Copper's outright price on the LME closed at $5,317 per tonne on Monday afternoon, climbing by more than 2.6% from an intra...Read More
Copper stocks at Shanghai bonded warehouses continued to decline on Monday May 18, falling closer to Fastmarkets' all-time low of 250,000 tonnes, which was posted in October 2015. Fastmarkets assessed Shanghai bonded copper stocks at 250,000-260,000 tonnes on May 18, down by 13.9% from 291,000-301,000 tonnes on May 4.The opening of an arbitrage window between Shanghai and London boo...Read More
The LME three-month copper price was higher in morning trading on Monday May 18, steadily approaching $5,300 per tonne amid steady turnover, while a 17,500-tonne fresh cancelation in LME zinc bolstered that metal's underlying price.Copper's outright price on the London Metal Exchange was recently seen at $5,280.50 per tonne, up from Friday's closing price of $5,181.50 per tonne, while turnover was...Read More
Glencore have signed an offtake agreement with Netherlands-based aluminium producer Aldel for up to 180,000 tonnes of aluminium this year and next, Aldel confirmed to Fastmarkets on May 18.Aldel currently produces 80,000 tonnes per year of aluminium products but plans to increase significantly in the next 12 months, the company said. Aldel informed customers that they had concluded the offtake agr...Read More
While backward-looking economic data continues to show how deep the global contraction has been, markets seem focused on the recovery this morning, Monday May 18, as more economies open up and plan to reopen in the weeks ahead. The base metals on the London Metal Exchange are up across the board, all the base metals with the exception of July nickel are up on the Shanghai Futures Exchange and Asia...Read More
Lead-zinc producer Recylex Group filed for insolvency protection for its German subsidiaries and will consequently lose control of its German subgroup, the company said last week.Recylex, Europe's third-largest lead-smelting company through its 105,000-tonnes-per-year Weser-Metall smelter in Nordenham, Germany, cited the fall in zinc price caused by the disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic as the...Read More
The departure of the chief executive officer of Tata Steel Netherlands, Theo Henrar, will result in job losses at the company's operations in the country, trade union FNV Metaal said on Monday May 18.Tata Steel Europe announced on Monday that Henrar will step down as chairman of the board of management of Tata Steel Nederlands on May 31 this year.His departure was agreed by mutual consent, a compa...Read More