Lithium-ionis about to take on a lot more significance. This is not about your iPhone anymore. It’s not even just about your electricvehicle. Lithium-ion batteries will power a large part ofour world in the future and are now an important aspect of amulti-trillion-dollar energy transition. That makes the world’s handful of lithium producersnow finally a hot item to...Read More

Metalsmarkets continue to diverge this week, with copper and platinum adding torecent breakout gains while gold struggles to find footing.Duringthis week’s selloff, gold revisited its lows from last November. A supportlevel exists at $1,750, but momentum selling could take prices down a bitfurther before technical gauges flash deeply oversold signals. Turningto silver, the white metal contin...Read More

Stocks are predictably staging a continued recovery fromthe mostly sideways correction – a shallow one not strong enough to break thebulls‘ back. Credit markets are largely behaving – with the exception oflong-term Treasuries, which I see as highly likely to draw the Fed‘s attention – just as I discussed in detail yesterday. The S&P 500 keeps doing fine, and so do...Read More

Under the Biden administration the economy could overheat, thereby increasing inflation and the price of gold.In January, Biden unveiled his plan for stimulating the economy, which is struggling as the epidemic in the U.S. continues to unfold. Pundits welcomed the bold proposal of spending almost $2 trillion. Some expenditures, especially on vaccines and healthcare, sound pretty reasonable. Howeve...Read More

Lets start with the daily bar combo chart for the PM complex which shows the August trading range still under construction making lower lows and lower highs for the most part. Below is the daily bar PM combo chart showing the possible H&S tops. Over the last couple of weeks most of the PM stock indexes have formed a small blue consolidation pattern right around the neckline with most of them b...Read More

The electric vehicle (EV) revolution isgaining serious momentum.According to experts’ projections, demand for electric vehicles should rise at a 21.1%Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) until 2026.The extraordinary demand that is forecast forEVs over the next five years has now begun to trigger a massive disruption inthe global energy markets. As demand for EVs continues to move higher,the d...Read More

With the yellow metal just posting itslowest close since June and a bearish pattern forming, how vulnerable is goldto a further decline?Gold and mining stocks just broke to newyearly lows – as I warned you in my previous analyses. And that’s only thebeginning.Let’s jump right into the charts,starting with gold. Figure1 - COMEX Gold FuturesIn early February, gold broke below theri...Read More

In 2019, 97-year-old John B. Goodenough receivedthe Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work on developing lithium-ionbatteries His discovery more than 40 years ago led to amassive breakthrough, giving us the rechargeable batteries hidden insidedevices we use every day... From smartphones and computers to power tools andmedical equipment.  But today, it’s led to a boom that’s signa...Read More

There has been quite a bit of chatter related to precious metals lately.  The rally in Cryptos, particularly Bitcoin, and various other stocks have raised expectations that Gold and Silver have been overlooked as a true hedging instrument. As these rallies continue in various other stocks and sectors, Gold and Silver have continued to trade sideways over the past 6+ months – when and ho...Read More

Peter Krauth, editor of Gold Resource Investor, delves into the movement among some companies to hold Bitcoin and gold rather than cash.Imagine your favorite company getting sued for holding too much cash.I know, that's a big statement. But hear me out.Corporations, pension funds and insurance companies—anyone responsible to stakeholders—could one day face class action lawsuits if they...Read More

The spread between prices for 65% Fe iron ore and 62% Fe products will likely remain wide in the near term due to tight supply of high-grade Carajas fines, market sources told Fastmarkets this week.The supply of Carajas fines to Chinese steel mills has been lower than expected in 2021, and this situation could continue to worsen in the second quarter, sources said.Furthermore, sintering restrictio...Read More

Palladium was manipulated for years. It had the largest short position relative to itssize, while physical demand rose inversely to decreasing supply.In 2018, demand became so large that itoverwhelmed the shorts.Physical palladium could not meet the market'sneeds and prices exploded. Shorts eventually decreased their positions untilthey got to a more sustainable level.For many years, the platinum/...Read More

Fastmarkets will publish its first low-carbon aluminium differentials for primary aluminium (P1020A) and value-added products in Europe on Friday March 5.A "green" supply chain has been a key focus for the aluminium market over the past few years. One main point of discussion has been whether low-carbon aluminium can fetch a premium due to its "green" status.Fastmarkets aims to bring transparency...Read More

Gold is dodging bullets, as it comesincreasingly under fire from rising U.S. interest rates and a USD that ispoised to surge.Catching unsuspecting traders in yetanother bulltrap , gold’s early-week strength quickly faded. And with investorsunwilling to vouch for the yellow metal for more than a few days, therush-to-exit mentality highlights a short-term vexation that’s unlikely tosubsi...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

All futures prices on the London Metal Exchange showed decreases of more than 3% at the close of trading on Friday February 26, with a mix of consolidation and profit-taking on the base-metals complex just a few days after they all rallied to new year-to-date highs.Lead and zinc's three-month prices were down by 5% and 3.4% respectively at the 5pm close, to $2,052.50 per tonne and $2,792.50 per to...Read More

Seaborne premium hard coking coal prices in both the fob and cfr markets edged down on Friday February 26 with most market participants, especially trading houses, taking a wait-and-see attitude.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $125.73 per tonne, down $1.27 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $218.55 per tonne, down $0.49 per tonneHard coking coal, fob DBCT: $119...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

London Metal Exchange metals prices were all lower on Friday February 26, following a spike in US 10-year Treasury bonds and a higher US Dollar Index.Tin and copper futures prices fell from their recent highs amid profit-taking, while nickel dropped below $19,000 per tonne.Yields on the 10-year US Treasury bonds jumped to 1.6% on Thursday before drifting down to 1.43% on Friday morning, but the ri...Read More