By: Ira EpsteinGold in an up thrust. Gold at a new high close, highest level since 2012:Read More

Inflationremains low, while Powell signals dovish Fed for years. Good for gold. The US CPI inflation ratedeclined 0.1 percent in May, following a0.8 percent drop in April. The decrease was mainly driven by decreases in energy,transportation and apparel prices. The core CPI also declined 0.1 percent, following a 0.4percent drop in April. It was the third consecutive monthly decline, whichhappened f...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Wednesday June 24 that are worth another look.The threat of Section 232 tariffs on aluminium imports from Canada into the United States has, like the great white shark following the Brody family in the universally panned film, 'Jaws: The Revenge,' returned - akin to a truly awful horror movie franchise.The Materials Services trading arm of...Read More

Mike Gleason: It is my privilege now to welcomeback Michael Pento president and founder of Pento Portfolio Services. Michaelis a well-known money manager, market commentator, and author of thebook, The Coming Bond Market Collapse: How to Survive the Demise of theU.S. Debt Market. He's been a regular guest with us over the years, andit's always a pleasure to have him on with us. Michael,...Read More

Gold investment demandremains strong, buoying the yellow metal and its miners’ stocks.  Investors have continued actively diversifyinginto gold despite soaring stock markets and weaker summer seasonals.  The Fed’s extreme money printing fuelingthese precarious stock-market heights is perilously inflationary, making uppinggold portfolio allocations essential.  Thisongoing...Read More

Although the gold to silver ratio has tightened a bit, it remains elevated and could indicate more upside for silver, according to McAlinden Research Partners.Silver and silver miners popped in May on the back of a rebound in industrial activity around the world. Ultra-low interest rates and expectations of a weaker dollar have compounded several political pressures that begun popping up at the en...Read More

Gold is original money. As such, it is the measure of value for everything else.Gold was money before the US dollar and other paper currencies. All paper currencies are substitutes for gold, i.e., real money.So, how much is money worth? Money is worth what you can buy with it. In my article A Loaf Of Bread, A Gallon Of Gas, An Ounce Of Gold, I compared the cost to purchase bread and gasoline over...Read More

The threat of Section 232 tariffs on aluminium imports from Canada into the United States has, like the great white shark following the Brody family in the universally panned film, 'Jaws: The Revenge,' returned - akin to a truly awful horror movie franchise. And that's how Neil Herrington, senior vice president for the Americas, US Chamber of Commerce, views reports that the US administration is c...Read More

Before updating the status of the gold miner (HUI) correction, let’s take a quick review of the Macrocosm, because it’s always a good time to be clear on important macro considerations.The graphic makes the following points that are the foundation of the NFTRH view on the right/wrong times to be fundamentally bullish on the gold stock sector. In order of priority, a bullish view needs:...Read More

Bullish sentiment appears to have returned to the stock markets with a vengeance. In a historic rally that has taken even die-hard bulls by surprise, the S&P 500 has managed to claw back all of its 2020 losses, taking just 53 sessions for the index to fully restore the nearly $10T in value it shed in an epic bear market. The oil markets have been nearly as impressive.After entering negative te...Read More

Watching out for sentiment extremes helps you avoid getting "caught up with the crowd"Simply put, a market sentiment extreme is a situation when most everyone has already taken a bullish or bearish position in a financial asset, leaving almost no one left to buy or sell.Silver provides an excellent case study.Let's briefly go back to April 18, 2011, when Elliott Wave International's U.S. Short Te...Read More

Technical analyst Clive Maund discusses the factors he sees weighing on precious metals in the near term.The precious metals sector is now set up for a correction that could be quite severe, which is evident on the charts, but also made more likely by the fundamentals where we see a return to "risk on" as a result of ongoing massive money injection by the Fed coupled with this being a seasonally w...Read More

The US Dollar index is not a true measure ofvalue of the US dollar. It just tracks an “exchange rate” between the US dollarand a basket of significant fiat currencies.For a true measure of value of the US dollarit is better to look to Gold and Silver. However, there is a relationshipbetween significant Gold rallies and the US Dollar index.Gold has a tendency to rally at a certaintime i...Read More

The recentjob report is not reliable, but it shows recovery in the US labor market. Thesituation is still bad, but optimism could triumph for now, which is bad forgold.  On Friday,the Bureau of Labor Services released the newest edition ofthe Employment Situation Report. The publication shows that the US economy regained 2.5 million jobs inMay, constituting the biggest nonfarm payroll surpris...Read More

Investors dumped paper gold and silver along with stocks, commodities, and most other asset classes in March. The price of silver dropped to $12.02/oz on March 18th and gold bottomed at $1,473/oz.The bullion banks – notorious for their concentrated short positions – might have made a killing. But that isn’t what happened. Some of the most prominent players took massive losses ins...Read More

Firstly, my long standing approach to Silver has been one of buying (accumulating) when the Silver price is cheap to invest to capitalise on long-term Spikes, as the silver price tends to be quite erratic in behaviour, prone to a lot of false signals so Silver can be a difficult market to trade i.e. tends to run stops and sharp movements contrary to the likes of Gold, just as we experienced during...Read More

Three-month base metals prices on the LME were mostly lower at the close of trading on Wednesday June 24, with thin turnover a key sign that investor sentiment remains fragile. Nickel's outright price on the London Metal Exchange was worse off this afternoon, falling by 1.26% to close at $12,547 per tonne, its lowest closing price since May 29, while turnover was at just 3,931 lots by th...Read More

Spot lead demand in Southeast Asia is still lackluster despite lockdown easing across Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, while interest in spot zinc units was minimal in all regions, which left premiums unchanged in the week to Tuesday June 23. A backlog of uncleared lead cargoes sit in Indian ports in the fourth week of June, a time that typically would have been a peak production period for batter...Read More

Cost pressures kept China's domestic rebar prices from falling further on Wednesday June 24 despite a pessimistic outlook for demand in the next two months amid high production rates.Domestic Eastern China (Shanghai): 3,560-3,590 yuan ($504-508) per tonne, unchangedGross profits for rebar producers that operate blast furnaces have fallen to around 100 yuan per tonne of gross profit, 50 yuan per to...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: Poised for a technical breakoutFears over a second wave of Covid-19 continue to grow, forcing prices of aluminium and the other base metals to take a pause. Our base-case scenario is that countries will respond more efficiently to contain the virus spread, so economic activity and metal demand should continue to r...Read More