South America's import prices for flat-rolled steel were mostly down during the week ended Friday January 29, with China-origin material offered at lower levels for April shipment.Some customers, on the other hand, had concerns that their previous expectations of a steeper downtrend after the Chinese New Year holiday period would not materialize due to high raw material costs and potential output...Read More

Copper concentrate treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) continued to drop toward the end of January as smelters cover cargoes that look to be delayed from Chile and Peru.What you need to know China smelters covering short positions exacerbated by Chile, Peru delays High sea swells are preventing cargoes from leaving some ports in Chile Las Bambas shipments have started to resume A...Read More

Prices for ferro-molybdenum and molybdic oxide rallied during the second half of the week ended Friday January 29 while concerns about interrupted shipments from Chile reduced the hopes that tightness in Europe and Asia might ease in the near term.Fastmarkets' price assessment for ferro-molybdenum 65% Mo min, in-whs Rotterdam, widened upward to $24.60-26.00 per kg on January 29, up by 2.3% from th...Read More

Pig iron import prices in the United States fell sharply in the week ended on Friday January 29, with at least one deal reported for Brazil-origin material.Fastmarkets' price assessment for pig iron, import, cfr Gulf of Mexico, US was at $500-510 per tonne on Friday, down by $65-75 from $575 per tonne the previous week.After several weeks of a quiet market, information started to circulate ab...Read More

A differentiated fee structure designed to drive member-to-member trade away from the telephone market is being proposed by the London Metal Exchange as part of its discussion paper. The goal is to incentivize trade on the exchange's electronic trading platform, LMESelect, and is proposed to be achieved by cutting fees to trade electronically while raising fees for the telephone market by around 5...Read More

The London Metal Exchange and its clearing house are revisiting a proposal to transition to a different way of calculating its clearing methodology. The exchange announced its discussion paper on the topic on Tuesday January 19. The last attempt was made in 2017 and was rejected by LME members because it would make the provision of credit lines expensive and result in the rapid withdrawal of...Read More

Covid-19 appears to have claimed another casualty: the London Metal Exchange ring trading floor. The closure of the floor, now entering its 144th year, has been proposed in a discussion paper issued by the exchange earlier on Tuesday January 19.The open outcry floor may be old, but it didn't appear to have serious underlying health issues. It has successfully fought back against talk it was set to...Read More

Tin's forward price rose by 1.5% in the week ended Friday January 29, while the rest of the base-metals complex on the London Metal Exchange, nickel and zinc in particular, showed lower prices than on Monday.This was blamed on several macro-economic factors turning sentiment downward for metals."With the exception of tin, across the board the base metal suite has come under pressure this week," St...Read More

Seaborne coking coal prices in both the fob and cfr markets kept relatively flat on Friday January 29, with no deals heard during the day although sources do not believe the seaborne premium hard coking coal fob price will exceed $160 per tonne in the short term.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $154.92 per tonne, down $0.18 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $21...Read More

The arrival of around a quarter of a billion dollars of zinc into London Metal Exchange warehouses this week has dented the metal's price prospects, confirming analysts' view of a well-supplied market. A total of 105,800 tonnes of zinc was delivered onto the LME system on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, all in the United States and Southeast Asian port locations, bringing total inventories on the...Read More

Blinded by greed, many so-called gold & silver "advocates" think they can end the manipulation by feeding the Beast. It doesn't work that way...(by Half Dollar) I think the Cartel is about to take silver behind the woodshed, and, by extension, take some otherwise smart people to the cleaners.That is to say, otherwise smart people think they're about to get rich quick in silver, but it doesn't work...Read More

The SEC has just released a statement on the recent market volatility. Will the SEC, or the CFTC, be forced to open the can of worms that is silver?(by Half Dollar) The government can only ever do one of two things: It can get in the way, or it can get out of the way.That's pretty much it.And when it comes to agencies like the CFTC, or the SEC, well, they pretty much only ever get in the way, and...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view. buoyant flat steel market and rising raw material prices resulted in large price rises for welded pipe products across all regions in January 2021.Increases in the price assessments for helical submerged arc-welded (HSAW) pipes were of the magnitude of $140-190 per tonne, with the exception of Europe, where prices were...Read More

The small fish are fighting back, and the big fish have good reasons to be quite scared...by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse BlogFor decades, the big fish on Wall Street have been able to do virtually anything that they want, but now the small fish are fighting back and it has been a beautiful thing to watch. Finally it is payback time, and the losses have been absolutely staggering. I...Read More

This is NOT about price! This is about EXPOSURE of the 4 Massive Silver Shorts! Hang on tight as the markets...by Bix Weir of Road to RootaI've been fighting the Silver Battle for over 20 years and we have NEVER had this kind of EXPOSURE to the SILVER MANIPULATION fraud as we have seen over the past 48 hours. This is NOT about price...this is about EXPOSURE of the 4 Massive Silver Shorts! Hang on...Read More

An overview of the new energy materials markets and their price moves from the past week.Read More

The export prices for pig iron from the Commonwealth of Independent States dropped during the week to Thursday January 28 on a bearish mood among buyers, sources have told Fastmarkets.Buyers preferred to hold back from making new deals until scrap prices settle and they can have a clearer price idea for pig iron, market sources said.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for high-manganese pig iron,...Read More

Tin's forward price rose by 1.5% in the week ended Friday January 29, while the rest of the base-metals complex on the London Metal Exchange, nickel and zinc in particular, showed lower prices than on Monday.This was blamed on several macro-economic factors turning sentiment downward for metals."With the exception of tin, across the board the base metal suite has come under pressure this week," St...Read More

Nickel stocks in Shanghai-bonded warehouses fell in January amid increased import activity due to a favorable arbitrage between London and Shanghai after China cut its provisional import tax on non-alloyed nickel from the beginning of the year.A marginal decline was recorded in Shanghai-bonded copper stocks over the past month, while zinc and aluminium inventories both increased, with the latter s...Read More

Base metals inventories, with the exceptions of lead and copper, were reported to be higher in Shanghai Futures Exchange-registered warehouses in the week to Friday January 29, with tin up by the most in percentage terms, rising by 22.1% over the past week.Tin inventories increased by 1,139 tonnes week on week to 6,291 tonnes, with the 830 Huangpu warehouse in Guangdong and the SIPG Logistics Suzh...Read More