The European ferro-titanium price dropped over the week to Wednesday March 3, with the range widening lower, which surprised industry sources because an acute shortage of scrap has been pushing up all titanium markets in recent months, sources said.The dip in ferro-titanium prices should be brief, however, given the upward pressure on prices from tight feedstock supplies, which is squeezing alloy...Read More

ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of Odisha, India to build an integrated steel plant in Odisha with a capacity for 12 million tonnes per year, it announced on Thursday March 4.The plant will be set up in the Kendrapara district and the investment is reported to be 500 billion rupees ($6.87...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Wednesday March 3 that are worth another look.A crackdown on industrial activity in Tangshan, China's steelmaking hub, is sending jitters throughout the sector. Fastmarkets examines what it means for the steel industry.Glencore has appointed BMO...Read More

Turkish prices for hot-rolled and cold-rolled coil increased in February 2021, with market demand strong because of low stock levels, Fastmarkets heard on Wednesday March 3.The country's HRC producers were fully booked until late June, while CRC producers were accepting orders for June, July and August production. They were not willing to give any discounts because of the strong local and export d...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Thursday March 4 that are worth another look....Read More

Copper's price dipped to $8,907.50 per tonne while nickel sank by 7.4% at the 5pm close of trading on the London Metal Exchange on Thursday March 4, with sell-offs and corrections seen for a second day.Prices for other materials in the base-metals complex fell by an average of 1.9%."Base metals have backed off from their recent highs over the past week, with the market experiencing some very viole...Read More

Trading activity in the CIS export market for steel billet had revived by the end of the week to Thursday March 4, although it started relatively quietly amid a lack of certainty in the raw materials and finished long steel sectors in customers' markets, particularly in Turkey."Turkish customers did not place many bids [for billet imports] because rebar and merchant bar sales in their domestic and...Read More

ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of Odisha, India to build an integrated steel plant in Odisha with a capacity for 12 million tonnes per year, it announced on Thursday March 4.The plant will be set up in the Kendrapara district and the investment is reported to be 500 billion rupees ($6.87...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Thursday March 4 that are worth another look....Read More

A key topic reverberating around the Asian steel market over the past month has been the possibility of China reducing steel export rebates to 9% from the current 13%, or possibly axing them altogether.Market chatter on this topic has grown increasingly louder, with industry sources in China hearing more and more details about these plans from late January onward."This is likely in line with China...Read More

Commodity prices have remained in a prolonged downward trend since the price peak in mid-2008. Driven lower by a firming U.S. dollar (DXY) beginning in 2008-2011 and continuing until the present, the S&P GSCI Commodity Index has declined by about 80 percent over the last 13 years.The recent rally in the S&P GSCI Commodity Index (GTX) in 2020 appears to be a reaction to the DXY price weakne...Read More

A shortage of containers to ship commodities around the world and the consequent soaring in associated freight rates have led to a revival of interest in breakbulk cargoes. Producers and physical traders of metals, agricultural, chemical and timber products have been starting to book shipments in breakbulk vessels, which cost far less and doesn't require vast amounts of equipment in port. On the 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

Theeffort to squeezesilver shorts may appear to have fizzled, but naked short sellersare as vulnerable as ever.Silverfutures prices are entering backwardation. That is a bad omen for anyonebetting on lower silver prices.Backwardationhappens very rarely, but this condition has been a reliable indicator thathigher prices are on the way each time it has occurred over the past decade.Inthe futures mar...Read More

2020 was a stellar year for the precious metals, indeed one for the books. As the pandemic hit the global economies early in the year and governments around the world began to shut everything down and the printing machines began to print ginormous amounts of money out of thin air to save their economies from total collapse, gold jumped 24%, while silver jumped nearly 50%, over double that of gold....Read More

The recent rally in Marijuana and Alternative Pharma/Agriculture stocks has been impressive, to say the least.  One thing we have to remember about this sector is that it rallied to highs in 2018 and 2019, then fell out of favor for many months.  The anticipation of this new sector emerging within the US, and across many areas of the globe, prompted quite a bit of excitement after 2016 w...Read More

Corrections in Gold and Gold Stocks are completely normal in an inflationary macro market phaseSee also The Normalcy of Gold posted on February 16.Every week I notice the agony ratcheting up incrementally. While the rest of the casino takes off to the speculative heavens, gold sits on its heavy ass and the gold miners go nowhere in a downward-biased perma-correction. Or so it seems. It’s all...Read More

When a trend is strong, related markets tend to move in unison.However, when a trend is near exhaustion -- either bullish or bearish, "non-confirmations" often occur. This is when one market continues to rise (or fall), but a related market does not.As a case in point, the Feb. 3 U.S. Short Term Update, an Elliott Wave International thrice weekly publication which provides near-term forecasts for...Read More

Unusual comments...by Chris Marcus of Arcadia EconomicsDid the silver shorts just reveal their exit plan?Unusual comments from #JeffChristian of the #CPMGroup about what could possibly happen in the #silver market.To find out more, click to watch the video now! Read More

Copper's price dipped to $8,907.50 per tonne while nickel sank by 7.4% at the 5pm close of trading on the London Metal Exchange on Thursday March 4, with sell-offs and corrections seen for a second day.Prices for other materials in the base-metals complex fell by an average of 1.9%."Base metals have backed off from their recent highs over the past week, with the market experiencing some very viole...Read More