Did the Cartel just kill the silver paper-price rally?*****Half Dollar's Note: In addition to the CFTC's statement discussed in the article below, Bloomberg reports margin requirements have been hiked by 18% on silver futures contracts, effective tomorrow, meaning, "put up more money or we'll sell your position".*****(by Half Dollar) Recall that last week, the SEC stepped in to issue a "statement"...Read More

This new group of investors just found out that the players on Wall Street have been manipulating Silver more than...by J. Johnson via JS MinesetGreat and Wonderful First Day of February Folks, Gold is trading in the green with the April contract now at $1,867.40, up $17.10 after the rally to $1,876 with the low down at $1,851.70. Short squeezed Silver is up $3.026 with the March contr...Read More

Here's an update on the incredible demand for silver...(by Half Dollar) By now, everybody knows about the tightness at the various bullion dealers around the country.Here's recommended viewing, featuring one of the original Docs:Developing... Read More

SPOILER ALERT: It doesn't even matter anymore if SLV goes Gamestop...(by Half Dollar) Yes, I was wrong about the imminent price crash, but I wouldn't go calling a surge in the price of silver from $27 to $30 exactly going GameStop.The point, however, is moot, and I still think that if the Cartel needs to keep eyes off of silver, the Cartel will just crash the broader markets as cover and take-down...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.The conequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on energy demand affected oil and gas prices through much of 2020 and weighed on drilling rates and demand for oil-country tubular goods (OCTG) in most regions.These effects were most likely to continue well into 2021 and perhaps longer, according to Fastmarkets OCTG Intelligence Serv...Read More

Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.By William Tankard, Principal Analyst and Hun Hao Chuah, Senior Research Analyst. Driven by a growing list of stakeholder requirements and an explosion in creative solutions, we expect the mining industry to accelerate its adopti...Read More

Some European steel producers pushed their official hot-rolled coil offer prices upward in the week ended Friday January 29, with buyers likely to accept some transaction price increases in the short term.On January 28, ArcelorMittal increased its official offers for HRC to ?,?750 ($910) per tonne ex-works across the EU, up by ?,?20 per tonne from previous offers. And Swedish steelmaker SSAB has b...Read More

RAPAPORT... The Indian government has reduced import duties for key precious metals and clarified that rough-diamond purchases are exempt from a new e-commerce tax, drawing praise from jewelry-trade leaders.Customs duties on gold and silver will decrease to 7.5% from the previous rate of 12.5%, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced Monday in the country's annual budget. The government...Read More

RAPAPORT... Grading laboratories are widely viewed as the guardians of trust in the diamond industry, and have a long history of using technology to authenticate the product. But the trade is seeing some disruption as the larger labs adopt artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to enhance their grading capabilities. In the third installment of Rapaport's podcast series, "Technology...Read More

RAPAPORT... The Natural Diamond Council (NDC) has launched a partnership program for jewelry retailers, enabling them to use the category-marketing organization's advertising materials on a local level."As we continue working under a new context where the need for digital content continues to rise, it has become apparent there is an opportunity to collaborate and share resources with diamond-...Read More

Fastmarkets proposes to amend the frequency of the publication of its copper cathode premium cif Rotterdam. Rotterdam continues to be a major location for copper cathode imports into Europe, but premiums for that business rarely change between a typical range, historically between $35 per tonne and $55 per tonne over London Metal Exchange prices. As such, Fastmarkets is proposing to amend the freq...Read More

(IDEX Online) - A rough tender in Dubai raised almost $60m as TAGS reported "extraordinarily strong demand".It says all 87,000 carats on offer were sold during the week-long event at at the Dubai Diamond Exchange."We achieved by far the highest prices we have seen since before the COVID-19 crisis," said a spokesman for Trans Atlantic Gem Sales DMCC (TAGS).Around 150 companies, mostly from India, t...Read More

(IDEX Online) - An American rapper is to have a huge natural pink diamond, valued at $24m, embedded in his forehead.Lil Uzi Vert, 26, told fans he'd been paying for the gem - which he describes as "10 almost 11 carats" since 2017 and it was now time to have it implanted. It cost more than his Bugatti, other cars and house, he said.Vert - real name Symere Bysil Woods, from Philadelphia - expla...Read More

(IDEX Online) - There was a mixed bag of price changes in January, with more activity among rounds than fancies.  Across all cuts and sizes shown below price increases and decreases were more or less even, and in many size categories there were virtually no changes. HIGHLIGHTED CHANGESROUNDS2.00-2.99 ct. E / VVS1-VS1 +3%, F-G / VS1 +3%3.00-3.99 ct. H-M / VS2 +2.5-3.5%...Read More

Fastmarkets proposes to discontinue pricing physical copper cathode premiums on a seaborne basis to South Korea. South Korea is a major producer of grade A registered refined copper cathodes and in recent years has imported very little of this material. South Korean copper cathode imports tend to be equivalent grade or non-registered material, which Fastmarkets is looking into pricing instead as i...Read More

Prices on the London Metal Exchange were mixed on Monday February 1 morning, with nickel the only metal to make a substantial gain of nearly 1%, given the weaker-than-expected Chinese manufacturing data released on Sunday. Nickel's three-month price was up 0.95% at 9am on Monday to $17,860 per tonne, from Friday's closing price of $17,691 per tonne.The metal fell 3% over the last week of January,...Read More

Metals analyst Vivienne Lloyd has joined Trafigura where she will focus on the zinc and lead markets, Fastmarkets understands.Lloyd joins after several years at Australian bank Macquarie in London where she covered base and...Read More

Onahama copper smelter in Japan is operating at half of its capacity after an oxygen plant outage in mid-January, Fastmarkets has learned. Jointly owned by Mitsubishi Materials and Dowa, Onahama smelter has an annual production capacity of 300,000 tonnes of copper. The smelter in Fukushima has been producing around 15% of Japan's copper output since its recovery from extensive damage caused by the...Read More

Trident aims to fill valuable nicheSPONSOREDtrident royaltiesNickel production increased 13% in the December quarter to 68,000 tonnes versus Q3, an improvement the company attributed to the gradual ramp-up of its Kola refinery in Russia.Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were up across the board this morning, Monday February 1, this despite weaker-than-expected manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) data out of China over the weekend.But perhaps most noteworthy has been the 8% rally in spot silver that has surpassed $29 per oz to challenge last August's high. March tin lower on Shanghai Futures Exchange despi...Read More