Base metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were broadly up during Asian morning trading on Monday May 7, with the complex benefiting from a slightly easier dollar. The dollar index was down by 0.1% at 92.47 as at 11am Shanghai time, this after it had spiked to a high of 92.91 last Friday despite disappointing US employment data for April - see data section below.Aluminium prices have foun...Read More

(Kitco News) - Money managers slashed their bullishpositioning in gold futures by 61% and flipped back to a net bearish positionin silver during the most recent reporting week for data compiled by theCommodity Futures Trading Commission. “The CFTC’s statistics show thatspeculative market participants were significantly more pessimistic in the weekto 1 May,” said a research no...Read More

ED&F Man Capital Markets Ltd has appointed Fred Demler as the company's executive vice president and global head of metals, the first time the international financial brokerage firm has created such a role. Demler, who will be based in New York, will be responsible for ED&F Man's global sales and trading staff, working with them to help service and develop the firm's growing client base. It marks...Read More

Chris VermeulenPosted May 7, 2018On Wednesday, May 2, we issued a research post supporting our position that the markets were nearing an apex breakout and that critical support and resistance levels had established within the market.We indicated that volatility is usually quite high throughout these apex breakout moves with the potential for a “wash-out” price rotation in the works.In...Read More

This analysis is an excerpt from the opening market commentary in my April 19th issue of the Mining Stock Journal.I was looking at some charts with a colleague two weeks ago and was startled to discover that a very quiet bull move has begun in the miners. Like the move that began in late 2015, it seems that some of the junior miners per GDXJ have gotten the party going. As you can see in the chart...Read More

FAIRFAX, Va (Reuters) - The U.S. economy is remarkably strong but the strong jobs market is not causing outsized wage pressures, the Federal Reserve’s newest regional Fed president said on Monday in his first major speech on monetary policy since he was appointed.“The economy’s performance as we sit here today is remarkably strong: above trend growth, low unemployment, inflation...Read More

Both the European spot and Chinese export ammonium paratungstate (APT) markets saw a greater number of inquiries over the past week amid persistent worries about possible supply disruptions in China resulting from ongoing environmental inspections in the country's Jiangxi province - a major production hub for APT. Concerns over disruptions at APT smelters in Jiangxi province continued More inquiri...Read More

Afarak has warned it expects to report a loss for the first quarter of 2018, citing a 30% drop in the benchmark price for ferro-chrome, higher raw materials costs and the appreciation of the South African rand.The London and Helsinki-listed mining and metallurgical group, which operates the Mogale Alloys chrome operation in South Africa, expects to report negative earnings before interest, taxes,...Read More

The struggles for gold continue,as commercials are short the metal in record numbers. Interestingly enough,their short position in silver has never been this small. The commercialsaren't always right, but it's hard to fight them because of the amount ofcapital they have at their disposal.Gold remains weak and every rallyis met by sellers, with gold making lower highs and lower lows, indicating the...Read More

Afarak has warned it expects to report a loss for the first quarter of 2018, citing a 30% drop in the benchmark price for ferro-chrome, higher raw materials costs and the appreciation of the South African rand.The London and Helsinki-listed mining and metallurgical group, which operates the Mogale Alloys chrome operation in South Africa, expects to report negative earnings before interest, taxes,...Read More

CloseGain/LossGold $1314.30+$0.30Silver$16.47-$0.03XAU81.99-0.50%HUI180.21-0.65%GDM632.09-0.05%JSE Gold1088.69-26.37USD92.77+0.17Euro119.23-0.34Yen91.59-0.14Oil$70.73+1.0110-Year2.950%+0.005T-Bond143.50-0.15625Dow24357.32+0.39%Nasdaq7265.21+0.77%S&P2672.63+0.35% The Metals: Gold gained $4.80 to $1318.80 in Asia before it fell back to $1310.30 by a little after 8AM EST, but it then bounced...Read More

(Kitco News)- Gold begins the week on a defensive note as the dollarcontinues well bid. It remains a case wherecomparisons show U.S. growth continues tooutperform the E.U. and Japan. The eurocould not recover the 1.20 euro/dollar level last week and the technical picturesuggests further “short-term” dollar strength. Repatriation of corporateoverseas dollar holdings has also added to do...Read More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China’s top economic official will visit Washington next week to continue trade talks with Trump administration officials, the White House said on Monday, after two days of talks in Beijing last week failed to produce a breakthrough.“We are working on something that we think will be great for everybody,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters....Read More

Anthony Milewski, Chairman and CEO of Cobalt 27 Capital, at the company's cobalt warehouse in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Photo courtesy Cobalt 27 Capital Corp.Cobalt 27 Capital Corp. [KBLT-TSXV, 270-FSE], owner of the world's largest stockpile of cobalt, said Monday May 7 that it has agreed to acquire a 1.5% gross revenue royalty on the Flemington cobalt-scandium-nickel project.The project is loc...Read More

Editor's Note: Welcome to Kitco's new Bitcoin Daily Technical Alert. Every trading day veteran Kitco technical analyst Jim Wyckoff will provide you with a concise and easy-to-understand near-term technical brief on Bitcoin. Importantly, Jim will glean the short-term charts and technical studies, and then alert you to the signals he sees regarding upcoming potential bigger price moves or price tren...Read More

FAIRFAX, Va. (Reuters) - U.S. interest rates have room to rise further given the remarkable strength of the U.S. economy, the Federal Reserve’s newest regional Fed president said on Monday in his first major speech on monetary policy since he was appointed.“Monetary policy is still pretty accommodative...when unemployment is low and inflation is effectively at our target, we probably o...Read More

Persistently weak demand in both the Chinese and European antimony markets continued to exert downward pressure on spot prices over the past week.Metal Bulletin assessed the Chinese MMTA standard grade II, delivered duty paid, antimony price at 51,000-51,500 yuan ($8,018-8,096) per tonne on Wednesday May 2, down from 51,500-52,000 yuan in the prior week."Demand from domestic downstream industries...Read More

The past few months have seen some unusual, maybe even unique, developments in the gold and silver futures markets, with gold becoming extremely bearish and silver almost ridiculously bullish. Neither imbalance has amounted to much in terms of price action, so it's not clear whether the most recent changes matter. Still, the action in both gold and silver futures remains unusual enough to bear wat...Read More

CALGARY - Toronto-based miner Sherritt International Corp. says it has developed a partial upgrading technology for the oilsands that could qualify for a $1-billion incentive program recently announced by the Alberta government.CEO David Pathe says the company has completed successful laboratory testing of the process at its facility in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., and is now looking for an industr...Read More

Chinese silicon export prices edged up last week despite the limited number of trades seen following China's Labour Day break (April 29-May 1), with a greater number of inquiries from regions other than Japan boosting sentiment in the country's export market.Metal Bulletin assessed the China grade 553 silicon export price at $1,910-1,960 per tonne on Friday May 4, up by 0.5% from $1,900-1,950 per...Read More