Michael Lillja will join Outokumpu as senior sales director in March, Fastmarkets understands.The chrome market veteran will join the Helsinki-listed stainless steel manufacturer and ferro-chrome producer...Read More

Near the end of 2020, my research team identified trends, pullbacks, and overall upward/downward trends in US major markets as well as those for Gold and Silver.  It is time we revisited these early 2021 predictions in relation to what is happening in the markets currently. You can revisit our original publication entitled What To Expect in 2021 Part II – Gold, Silver, and SPY.At the ti...Read More

If you're a close observer of the metals market, you know that the price of silver has taken a tumble during the past several days.Elliott wave analysis was a big help in identifying the price turn, which occurred on Jan. 6.Indeed, here's a chart and commentary from the Jan. 6 issue of our Monday-Wednesday-Friday U.S. Short Term Update, an Elliott Wave International publication which provides near...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Thursday February 4 that are worth another look.Brazil-based miner Vale has reached a settlement with local prosecutors to pay 37.7 billion Reais ($7.03 billion) in reparations for the deadly disaster that hit the city of Brumadinho in January 2019, it said...Read More

Peter Krauth, the editor of Gold Resource Investor, traces previous gold bull markets and lays out what he believes is in store for the current one.If we want to make intelligent forecasts and decisions about our future, we need to understand not only where we are today, but also how we got here. So, let's look at previous gold bull markets for some insight on what we might expect from this one.Go...Read More

Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States have reached an all-time high, supported by strong demand and extremely tight supply, Fastmarkets has learned.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $59.23 per hundredweight ($1,184.60 per short ton) on Thursday February 4, up by 2.69% from $57.68 per cwt the previous day and more than double $29.57 per cwt on...Read More

A new sheriff is in in town, and he’s making some rearrangements. Will the new order of things support the price of gold?What a blitzkrieg! Joe Biden certainly wastes no time in signing executive orders. Since inauguration, he introduced several policies, including mandating masks on federal property, in airports and on certain public transportation, and the end of a travel bank on some coun...Read More

Domestic prices for hot-dipped galvanizing coil have been stable in Northern Europe over the week to Wednesday February 3, supported by tight supply, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel hot-dipped galvanized coil domestic, exw Northern Europe was unchanged over the week at ?,?820-840 ($987-1,011) per tonne on February 3.The assessment was based on achievable pri...Read More

Last year felt like apivot point in U.S. history. The pandemic and election left the nationideologically divided.There seem to be onlythree resolutions going forward.America will face anincreasingly authoritarian federal government ruling over a largely apatheticpopulace, the nation will splinter, or leadership will emerge which is somehowcapable of bridging the ideological divide between the Amer...Read More

Gold is suffering a hang-over afterit’s early January highs, while the EUR/USD pair is buckling - so when golddeclines, where will its bottom be?After injecting itself with JanetYellen’s stimulus sentiment, gold came down from its highs on Friday (Jan. 22).And like the GDX ETF, it’s important toput gold’s recent run into context. For starters, gold is stilltrading below its...Read More

The attraction of high sales volumes and good netbacks in China continued to tighten supply and supported prices for ferro-chrome in Europe in the week to Tuesday February 2.Ferro-chrome producers have targeted China, attracted by the high demand, rather than Europe. This has reduced the volumes available in Europe, which in turn has increased prices.Fastmarkets' price assessment for ferro-chrome,...Read More

Inflation will be one of the greatest upside risks for gold this year. Will it materialize and make gold shine?The report about gold in 2021 would be incomplete without the outlook for inflation . We have already written about it recently, but this topic is worth further examination. After all, higher inflation is believed to be one of the biggest tail risks in the coming months or years, and one...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Thursday February 4 that are worth another look.Brazil-based miner Vale has reached a settlement with local prosecutors to pay 37.7 billion Reais ($7.03 billion) in reparations for the deadly disaster that hit the city of Brumadinho in January 2019, it said...Read More

Gold seems to be sleeping off itslatest mini-rally and lacks the momentum to reach new highs. What happens fromhere? Has the USD bottomed? And what does it mean when we factor in the EUR/USDpair and poor economic indicators from Europe into the equation?Not much happened yesterday (Jan. 21),but what happened was relatively informative. And by “relatively” I meanliterally just that. Gol...Read More

My team prepares Custom Valuations Index charts to understand how capital is being deployed in the global markets alongside US Dollar and Treasury Yields.  The purpose of the Custom Index charts in this article is to provide better insight into and understanding of underlying capital movements in various market conditions.  Recently, we discovered the Custom Index chart shares a kee...Read More

Peter Krauth, the editor of Silver Stock Investor, looks at silver's bull markets since the 1970s and discusses what he thinks lies ahead. There's no consensus on whether silver is in its second or third secular bull market since the 1970s. That's because people define bull markets in different ways. But as I'll show you, it's not that important.What we do know is that silver enjoyed a huge bull m...Read More

The Biden administration's focus on US manufacturing and domestic supply chains will benefit established and developing minerals and metals sectors, including steel, rare earths, graphite and lithium.US President Joe Biden's executive order on the strengthening of American manufacturing, which he signed during his first week in office, is expected to have a direct effect on demand for US-produced...Read More

Gold moved higher as the USD Indexmoved lower in today’s pre-market trading. Before providing you with mythoughts on why that happened and what the implications are, let’s see exactlywhat transpired. Figure1 - USD IndexIn yesterday’s (Jan. 19) analysis , I commented on the above USD Index chart in the following way:TheUSD Index is after a major breakout above the declining resist...Read More

Anyone who owns precious metals, mining shares or metals' ETFsknows the drill.First, gold and silver begin toestablish an uptrend on the charts. Analysts (like us) start writing about howprices are getting ready to make an upside run.Then "out of nowhere" thousands of highly marginedfutures contracts hit the market on the short side, "re-painting" thecharts, sending terror into...Read More

The price of gold has declined further amid incoming U.S. President Joe Biden’s fiscal stimulus and poor economic data, which is a bearish sign.The weakness in the gold market continued last week. As the chart below shows, the London P.M. Fix declined below $1,840 last Friday (the price of the yellow metal later declined even further, i.e., below $1,830). The downward trend is a bit disturbi...Read More