By Gary TanashianSo here we are, with the sector leading the recovery out of the March crash during still-deflationary times. Inflation? It is not yet anywhere to be found, and that probably has a lot of inflation-centric would-be gold boosters on the sidelines. Someday, when these ladies are in full cheer with inflation signals rising, it will be time for caution.Meanwhile, for years we have st...Read More

No Place to Hide: How Market Manipulation in the Age of Pandemic is Destroying Traditional Safe HavensBy Neil VowlesUniversity of Sussex, Brighton, England, UKThursday, May 14, 2020http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/52005The coronavirus pandemic has created enormous volatility in global financial markets but prices of safe-haven assets such as gold and bitcoin are not surging as one might ex...Read More

The major gold miners' stocks have rallied dramatically out of mid-March's stock-panic lows, soaring to new bull-market highs. Their just-reported Q1'20 operational and financial results reveal whether today's higher gold-stock prices are fundamentally justified. They also illuminate whether this gold-stock upleg is likely to continue powering higher, despite the catastrophic economic damage...Read More

By: Ira EpsteinGold is thrusting higher and now looking at prior highs, watch these key resistance and breakout levels. Read More

A diversified portfolio may well prove to be a winning ticket for metals and mining companies during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the former chief executive officer of Rio Tinto. This is in stark contrast to the global financial crisis of 2008-09, when an across-the-board hit to demand broadly left diversified miners in the same position as pure-play operators, Tom Albanese said. "When the...Read More

Export prices of Brazil-origin slab increased week on week amid recent deals and offers to China as well as increased raw material costs.Fastmarkets assessed the price for steel slab export, fob main port Brazil at $335-350 per tonne on Friday May 15, up by $5 from $330-345 per tonne the week previous.Chinese customers recently purchased material, sources said, with deals being heard at a minimum...Read More

An overview of the battery raw materials markets and their price moves from the past week.Read More

The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to lead to another casualty: the mega mine. The volatility created by crises like Covid-19 is adding a layer of uncertainty to the development of large-scale projects that take a decade or more to progress and are highly capital intensive, according to Tom Albanese, the former chief executive officer of Rio Tinto.This means that mining projects are likely to be deve...Read More

Alcoa Corp has called on the aluminium industry to assess the cost effectiveness of its smelting capacity and make cuts where appropriate - or face a ratcheting up of inventories and a protracted period of low prices. Roy Harvey, the US producer's chief executive officer, said that while curtailments were costly, both financially and in terms of job losses, they were more than necessary at this mo...Read More

Precious metals markets enter the month of May with somemixed signals near term.  But thelong-term picture continues to look constructive.  All the metals appear to have put in majorbottoms during the panic selling of mid to late March. Barring another wave of virus outbreaks and economiclockdowns, the gradual reopening of state, local, and national economies shouldstart to unleash more...Read More

Silver is poweringhigher in a new bull market after getting clobbered in March’s stock panic.  Investors have been flocking back to silverin the aftermath of that ultra-rare extreme-fear event.  That brutal selloff also utterly wiped out speculators’upside bets in silver futures, giving them massive room to buy back in.  After being pummeled to record-low levelsrelative...Read More

The three-month copper price on the London Metal Exchange fell by 0.54% to close at $5,181.50 per tonne on Friday May 15.All the base metals remained under pressure on Friday and despite copper reaching an intraday high of $5,272 per tonne, it failed to maintain momentum and closed below the $5,200-per-tonne threshold with a turnover of just under 14,000 lots.Total copper stocks stood at 278,750 t...Read More

10 years ago every “analyst” and his brother was hyping the future price of gold and I kept track of their guesses in an article entitled “Gold Going To $2500, $5000, $10000, Even More? These 148 “Analysts Think/Thought So“. None of their forecasts “panned” out (pun intended) but some are back at it again suggesting that we are going to see gold going as h...Read More

April marks a second month of truly extraordinary developmentsin markets – from negatively priced crude oil futures to a record spike inunemployment claims to a lockdown-defying rally in stocks. The financial media is touting the S&P 500’s surge of morethan 13% in April – the biggest one-month gain for the index since 1974. While stock market investors have made up a big chu...Read More

Seaborne iron ore prices rose again on Friday May 15, supported by demand for crude steel production and increases in swaps and futures markets. Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $93.65 per tonne, up $1.48 per tonne. 62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $96.33 per tonne, up $1.83 per tonne. 58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $79.63 per tonne, up $1.25 per tonne....Read More

Negative oil prices isanother corona consequences that no one saw coming. A 30% drop in world oil demand due to the corona lockdown's resulting in demand falling to 70m barrels per day, whilst the producers are pumping out over 90mbd meant that storage faculties had become saturated, thus nowhere to transport new supply to. What actually triggered the collapse was the expiry of May NYMEX oil futur...Read More

Fastmarkets' Shanghai benchmark copper premium surged to its highest level since September 2015 on May 15, with traders looking for overseas material to tap arbitrage gains. sources said. Fastmarkets assessed the copper grade-A cathode premium, cif Shanghai at $95-120 per tonne on May 15 Friday, compared with $95-115 per tonne the day before. The premium, widely used by the copper industry fo...Read More

Theaction in silver is really interesting. Let’s check the prospects for volatilewhite metal, and the relevant historical analogy it offers. Is the major 2008 –2020 analogy in terms of price moves remains intact? In short, yes. SilverShares Its Two CentsSilverplunged to our initial target level and reversed shortly after doing so. It wasfor many months that we’ve been featuring t...Read More

I think the case is closed, or it should be closed. But with firmly ingrained perceptions passed down from one generation of inflationist gold bugs to the next, you never know. Remember the old dismissive “gold is silver is copper is tin is oil is hogs” line from the 2003-2008 time frame? Probably not, but I remember it because it was me saying it against an army of inflationist commod...Read More

Agora Financial's Byron King and John-Mark Staude of Riverside Resources offer their viewpoints on markets during the COVID-19 pandemic in this conversation with Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable.Maurice Jackson: Today, we will seek to discover the true price of gold and silver and prospect generators. Joining us for a conversation is Byron King of Agora Financial, along with Dr. John-Mark St...Read More