Exporters of hot-rolled coil in Turkey and the Commonwealth of Independent States have been redirecting volumes to Asia from their traditional markets such as Europe.Steel demand and prices in Asia, notably China, started to recover in April after a slump in consumption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This revival happened earlier than in the other regions, where sellers in both Turkey and the CI...Read More
Special bar quality (SBQ) steel prices in the United States have again risen due to increased raw material costs, but demand remains weak, industry participants told Fastmarkets. On the hot-rolled side of the market, Fastmarkets' monthly price assessment for steel bar hot-rolled special bar quality (SBQ) 1-inch round 1000 series (carbon), fob mill US rose to $33.25 per hundredweight ($665 per shor...Read More
Strengths? The best performing precious metal for the week was gold, up 2.78 percent. After its 1.7 percent drop last Friday, gold rose back above $1,700 an ounce this week as investors took advantage of buying the dip. Commerzbank AG analyst Carsten Fritsch told Bloomberg that gold price declines are still seen as a buying opportunity. "Central banks are not expected to revers...Read More
- Dave Kranzler, Mining Stock Journal"No one ever loses equity in a bankruptcy case," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones said during a status conference in the J.C. Penney case last month. "Equity gets lost long before the case is filed."Hertz filed Chapter 11 under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code after the market closed on May 22nd. The filing was well telegraphed. The next day the stock took a cliff...Read More
Investment manias are nothing new on Wall Street, but this time the heavy betting is on the mania itself. Speculating on volatility is the latest fad, and it is metastasizing so quickly that in just two short months wagers that the stock market will grow even crazier have become the actual cause of its craziness. The bets mainly involve derivatives, including options and ETFs that are ti...Read More
Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report The U.S. Shale Oil Industry is in serious trouble, even without the negative impacts of the global contagion. While it's no secret that shale oil wells suffer high decline rates, what is taking place in the country's largest oil field is quite alarming. The rate at which shale oil production is declining in the Permian should worry investors. In just three...Read More
We are on the horns of a dilemma, caught between the Scylla and Charybdis, a rock and a hard place, the devil and the deep blue sea, the anvil and the hammer. The walls are closing in. We're in a tight spot.All those metaphors (I could list more but will spare you) fit the present economic situation (some are now calling the omni-crisis) and I think will also describe the 2020s.Thanks to forces...Read More
Egypt's ministry of trade and industry plans to raise import duties on steel billet and rebar, Egyptian sources told Fastmarkets on Monday June 15.Officials from the ministry will meet steel producers this week to discuss the duty changes, the sources said.In April this year, the Egyptian ministry of trade and industry postponed...Read More
Domestic steel rebar prices in Russia's Central Federal District around Moscow increased in the week to June 15, supported by improving demand and bullish exports, sources told Fastmarkets on Monday June 15.Sentiment in the rebar market in the region improved amid rising construction activity and an uptrend in exports, sources said."Construction sites have gradually re-opened since mid-M...Read More
Trading activity in the seaborne iron ore concentrates and pellet markets was limited in the week to Friday June 12 after increases in line with rising iron ore fines prices. Fastmarkets' index for iron ore 66% Fe concentrate, cfr Qingdao, stood at $115.18 per tonne on June 12, up $2.55 per tonne from $112.63 per tonne a week earlier. Sources said concerns over supplies from Brazil trigg...Read More
Turkish steel producers remained active in the market for import scrap in the week ending Friday June 12, while prices for bulk scrap in Japan and Vietnam appear to hit a ceiling as activity slowed.Turkish mills continue to book deep-sea scrap Demand from Turkey has allowed US East Coast prices to keep increasing Trading activity falls in Vietnamese market as offer prices climb Buying activi...Read More
Technical analyst Clive Maund charts the explorer and discusses recent trading in the stock. Although our buying towards the end of Maydidn't succeed in triggering a breakout by Black Tusk Resources Inc. (TUSK:CSE; BTKRF:OTCMKTS; 0NB:FSE), it rose a bit and its technical condition has continued to improve, as we can see on its 8-month chart below. There is no point in writing much here because th...Read More
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday June 15 that are worth another look.Jaguar-Land Rover will cut up to 1,100 employees in the UK, while posting a pre-tax loss amid the coronavirus pandemic, it announced on June 15 in its financial results.Latin American steelmakers were operating at 42% capacity in April after at least seven blast furnaces were halted to balance sup...Read More
Sector expert Michael Ballanger critiques the latest news and moves in the stock and precious metals markets. As I was watching the pompom news channel (CNBC), they went into full damage control over Thursday's massacre, and I thought to myself, "What markets or media bullet points do 'the boys' need to control today in order to avoid a weekly sell signal and ensuing panic?"In order of urgency, h...Read More
Saudi Arabia General Customs Authority has postponed its planned increase in duties on steel imports, it said on Thursday June 11. Import duties on several steel products were scheduled to increase on June 10, Saudi Arabian market sources told Fastmarkets on May 29. The customs authority now says the...Read More
China's crude steel, hot metal and finished steel output all rose to historical highs in May, according to data released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday June 15.These exceeded the previous highs set in May 2019.May outputCrude steel: 92.27 million tonnes, up by 4.2% from a year earlier, up by 8.5% from April Hot metal: 77.32 million tonnes, up 2.4% year on year, up b...Read More
- Dave Kranzler, Mining Stock Journal"No one ever loses equity in a bankruptcy case," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones said during a status conference in the J.C. Penney case last month. "Equity gets lost long before the case is filed."Hertz filed Chapter 11 under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code after the market closed on May 22nd. The filing was well telegraphed. The next day the stock took a cliff...Read More
Watching out for sentiment extremes helps you avoid getting "caught up with the crowd"Simply put, a market sentiment extreme is a situation when most everyone has already taken a bullish or bearish position in a financial asset, leaving almost no one left to buy or sell.Silver provides an excellent case study.Let's briefly go back to April 18, 2011, when Elliott Wave International's U.S. Short Te...Read More