Cadence Minerals has started the shipment of iron ore from stockpiles at its joint venture Dev Minera????o's, in Brazil's northern Amap?? state, the company said on Monday March 29.The shipment, which is the first since the site was closed in 2015, is for 45,000 tonnes of iron ore that due to sail this week. Fastmarkets' index for iron ore 65% Fe Brazil-origin fines, cfr Qingdao was calculate...Read More

Many analysts expect silver to outperform gold this year. It’s possible, but investors shouldn’t count on improving economic conditions and industrial demand.Silver has recently become a hot investment theme. For months, if not years, some analysts claimed that silver is undervalued relative to gold. Then, at the beginning of 2021, Reddit revolutionaries tried to trigger a short squeez...Read More

The rally in the antimony price reached a celling and began to trend downward with no signs of a rebound for the time being, with producers in China and traders in Europe destocking material at lower levels amid little buying appetite.That said, external factors, such as upcoming environmental inspections in Hunan, China, and delays caused by the blockage of the Suez Canal could halt the decline,...Read More

While everyone was paying attention to the FOMC, Gold & Silver, and the Treasury Yields, it appears the recent commodity rally trend took a big hit on Thursday, March 18, 2021.  Our guess is that the FOMC statement did nothing to support the continued commodity price rally as the US Fed continued with near-zero interest rates and economic support through 2023.  The rally in commoditi...Read More

Peter Krauth, editor of Gold Resource Investor, looks at the Fed's actions and what they augur for gold. This week Fed Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke at the "Innovation Summit" hosted by the Bank for International Settlements.During his talk, he dissed Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies saying they were "…highly volatile and therefore not really useful stores of value, and they're not backed b...Read More

Slab export prices from Brazil were stable in the week ended Thursday April 1, with most sellers already sold out of May-shipment volumes, but are mulling over new price increases for April.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel slab, export, fob main port Brazil was $780-810 per tonne fob on Friday, unchanged from the previous week.Next week, sellers are considering price increases o...Read More

Both Powell and Yellen testified before Congress. They sounded upbeat on the U.S. economy, but gold’s reaction was weak.What a combo! Both Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testified before Congress this week. They spoke about the economic response to the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Great Lockdown .In his prepared remarks , Powel...Read More

The import market for flat-rolled steel came to a stop in South America in the week to Thursday April 1, with mills in China mills mostly withdrawing from exports, or refraining from offering to the region.The trigger for this was the doubt in the East Asian country about its final decision on an export tax rebate cut, market participants told Fastmarkets.Some Chinese steelmakers did offer exports...Read More

 The mining ETFs (the GDX and GDXJ) have hitresistance and look tired. After their corrective rally, a slide lookspromising.  The miners are done correcting and if theywere at a water amusement park, would they head for the lazy river? How aboutthe wave pool? Nah… they’d be headed straight for the slides.  If you’ve been waiting for a high-qualitysign that the nex...Read More

The price of alloy-grade cobalt has risen above that for its standard-grade counterpart for the first time in six weeks, Fastmarkets heard on Thursday April 1, with cheap standard-grade parcels available from sellers looking to take profit.This situation bucked a recent trend where standard-grade metal had been trading mostly at a premium due to strong demand for briquettes downstream.Broken catho...Read More

The globalist push for central bank digital currency is ramping up.On Monday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke at a virtual "Innovation Summit" hosted by the Bank for International Settlements, the central bank for central banks around the world.Powell aimed his remarks specifically at digital currencies. And he made it clear that Bitcoin and other privately circulating crypt...Read More

Despite everyone saying the bottom isin, and that gold and miners are set for takeoff, the signs still point south.The real question: how low can they go?Let’s take a look at some price targetsfor where the GDX and GDXJ mining ETFs might land up.With the miners attempting to reclaimPride Rock, it won’t be long until the GDX ETF is singing Hakuna Matata.Rising U.S. Treasury yields? No p...Read More

Peter Krauth, editor of Gold Resource Investor, examines the commodity supercycle and the role recency bias plays in investment decisions. Recency bias is a funny thing. It's human nature to expect the near future to look like the recent past.But we all know that's not how things always play out. And that can be costly, even dangerous, for investors.Take long term bonds, for example. Ten-year Trea...Read More

The Shanghai Futures Exchange's plans to list ferro-chrome futures, potentially this year, will bring welcomed hedging opportunities and may weaken the dominance of China's stainless steel mills in the ore and alloy markets, participants told Fastmarkets.While no definite date or specifications of the ferro-chrome futures have been announced, Fastmarkets asked participants what changes these contr...Read More

Usually after a London Metal Exchange discussion paper there is a decent idea of what the outcome is likely to be. But this time around, it seems much harder to tell which path the LME will take. The proposals under debate include the permanent closure of the exchange's open outcry trading floor, known as the ring, which dates back to 1877. They also include the incentivization of electronic trade...Read More

When considering the prospects for the new Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) copper contract, a senior executive at one of the world's largest metals trading companies quoted Hamlet's soliloquy in the Shakespearian play of the same name."In terms of promotion of the internationalization of the renminbi and weakening of the pricing power of the [London Metal Exchange] and CME: 'To be or...Read More

A global shortage of steel slab is a key factor in rocketing flat steel prices, market sources told Fastmarkets this week.Reduced CIS suppliesCustomers from Italy and Turkey have noticed a reduction in the availability of steel slab originating in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region in the second half of March."Some Italian re-rollers cannot produce much coil and plate due to missi...Read More

Aluminium's and nickel's prices bounced back slightly at the close of trading on the London Metal Exchange on Thursday April 1 from Wednesday's figures, but aluminium and zinc showed losses over the week of nearly 2%, while other base metals continued to consolidate.Nickel's three-month price showed the biggest increase in the base-metals complex on Thursday, up by 0.9% to $16,214 per tonne, back...Read More

Iron ore prices went up on Thursday April 1, largely due to support from rising steel prices, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $167.60 per tonne, up $2.45 per tonne62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $168.52 per tonne, up $1.94 per tonne58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $150.19 per tonne, up $3.20 per tonne65% Fe Brazil-origin fines, c...Read More

Zinc producer Trevali has begun trucking ore concentrate at its mothballed Caribou mine in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, the company said on Tuesday March 30.The activity follows the producer reopening the Caribou mine in mid-January. It had been on care and maintenance from March 2020.The Caribou mine's last full year of activity was 2019, when it recorded 34,017 tonnes of zinc producti...Read More