(IDEX Online) - Sales at Luk Fook fell by over a fifth as the retail jeweler was hit by a tourism slump.Same-store sales for Hong Kong, where the company is based, and for Macau, slumped by 47.1 per cent, due largely to Covid-related travel restrictions.Luk Fook also has stores in Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, the Philippines, the United States, Canada and Australia. Mainland stor...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Watch retailers are facing a seismic shift as manufacturers increasingly cut out the middleman and sell to direct to consumers.In the premium to ultra-luxury watches industry, an estimated $2.4bn in revenue will transfer from multibrand retailers to watchmakers from 2019 to 2025 as a result of DTC (direct to consumer) sales, says the annual State of Fashion report by the Business o...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Researchers believe diamonds found in Canada are 2.7 billion years old - and say they provide compelling evidence that the Earth is considerably older.They say the tiny gems are effectively acting as time capsules. Minute quantities of gas trapped inside them reflect the chemical composition of the Earth's mantle at the time they were formed.What they reveal is that the propor...Read More

Italian steelmaker AFV Beltrame will invest ?,?300 million ($355 million) in a greenfield steel rebar and wire rod facility in Romania that will focus on limiting the environmental impact of its steelmaking activities, the company said on Wednesday July 7.Specifically, the project is hoped to have the lowest emissions of any steel plant in the world in terms of greenhouse gases and suspended dust...Read More

Automotive production in Brazil rose by 69.58% in June over the corresponding month in 2020, on the industry's recovery from stoppages called during the Covid-19 pandemic last year, automakers' association Anfavea said on Wednesday July 7.The figure was lower month on month, however, and supply disruptions have led Anfavea to reduce its estimate for the sector's full-year 2021 performance.Vehicle...Read More

Domestic steel wire rod prices in the south of Europe remained largely flat in the week to Wednesday July 7, with buyers reluctant to accept higher prices and postponing purchases, sources told Fastmarkets.Prices are not expected to fall in the short term, sources said, because supplies are still tight and feedstock costs continue to rise.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel wire rod (me...Read More

Rebar prices in the south of Europe widened upwards in the week to July 7, moved by bullish offers from Spanish producers, while the Italian market was generally flat and digesting previous rises, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), domestic, delivered Southern Europe was ?,?760-830 ($900-983) per tonne on Wednesday, widening from&n...Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were up across the board this morning, Wednesday July 7, suggesting dip buying after Tuesday’s weakness that saw copper, aluminium and nickel fall by 2%, or more.Tuesday's drop in the ISM services purchasing managers index (PMI) to 60.1, from 64, was partly blamed for the day’s weaker markets, as was the jump in the US Dollar Index.Bas...Read More

A lack of apparent upside for secondary scrap in July's domestic trade has taken the wind out of the sails of the US export market, with Turkish and South Korean buyers securing cargoes at $3.00- to $21.50-per-tonne discounts compared with the last-reported sales to these regions.Before official negotiations opened, US mills warned scrap sellers that any price increases in this month's domestic fe...Read More

Turkish steel mills returned to the deep-sea scrap import markets with a flurry of bookings from the Baltic Sea and the United States, market participants told Fastmarkets on Wednesday July 7.A steel mill in the Izmir region booked a cargo from the US, comprising 30,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $498 per tonne cfr.And in the Marmara region, a steel mill also booked a US cargo, comprising HMS 1&...Read More

China's new trend pf setting out unwritten rules for its commodities industries and communicating them verbally will be a key method to watch out for in the future, market sources told Fastmarkets."Unofficial communications to steel mills are increasingly [coming] via provincial and township authorities [and are], not written out clearly as announcements," an iron ore trader in eastern China told...Read More

Fastmarkets is proposing to launch a fortnightly China pig iron import price assessment to enhance its growing editorial coverage of the Asian market for the steelmaking raw material.The new assessment will be for pig iron with maximum 1.25% manganese content and maximum 0.15% phosphorus content.Market sources expect China to import pig iron in increasing volumes due to its evolving steel industry...Read More

Coking coal prices maintained the stable trend in both the cfr and fob market on Wednesday July 7. There is new demand for October-loaded Australia coking coal in the fob market and the offers for prompt loading cargoes remained strong, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $202.25 per tonne, down $0.27 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $308...Read More

Iron ore prices were generally flat on Wednesday July 7 in the physical market with limited liquidity, while futures prices were driven up by bullish steel prices, sources said.Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $222.39 per tonne, up $0.03 per tonne62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $225.70 per tonne,down $0.32 per tonne58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $185.69...Read More

Xinfa group's alumina refinery in Xiaoyi city, Shanxi province closed an operation line with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per year last week due to a bauxite shortage, several sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday July 7.The refinery has a total capacity of 3.6 million tonnes and has run at full capacity since May.Xin'an Chemical alumina refinery, a subsidy of Hangzhou Jinjiang group located i...Read More

I've made many visits to China over the past thirty years and have been careful to move beyond Beijing (the political capital) and Shanghai (the financial capital) on these trips.My visits have included Chongqing, Wuhan (the origin of the coronavirus outbreak), Xian, Nanjing, new construction sites to visit "ghost cities," and trips to the agrarian countryside.My trips included meetings with gover...Read More

China's domestic rebar prices rose slightly on Wednesday July 7, but the gains were much lower than those in the futures market.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 4,960-4,990 yuan ($767-771) per tonne, up by 10 yuan per tonneHeavy rain in large parts of China and high temperatures in the south have pushed down end-user demand for rebar, with one trader in Shanghai describing spot demand as "really....Read More

Hot-rolled coil prices in China's domestic market rose for a third straight day on Wednesday July 7, following a sharp gain in futures prices driven by growing expectations of production reductions across Chinese steelmakers in the remainder of the year.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 5,650-5,720 yuan ($873-884) per tonne, up by 70-100 yuan from 5,580-5,620 yuan per tonne. The most-traded HRC co...Read More

Base metals rallied in morning trading on Wednesday July 7 with copper leading the pack higher.At $9,495 per tonne the LME three-month copper contract was up 1.96% from Tuesday's 5pm close."Yesterday, we said the metals were looking more upbeat because copper had broken higher, but given the weakness seen yesterday, the market looks a bit flighty, so we will wait to see if the dip buying pushes co...Read More

An overview of the specialty steel raw materials markets in Europe and their latest price moves.Janie Davies and...Read More