(Reuters) - Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc (VRX.TO) (VRX.N) on Tuesday decided to take the name of its best performing optical products unit as part of a turnaround plan and raised its 2018 revenue forecast.Valeant will become Bausch Health Companies Inc from July as Chief Executive Officer Joseph Papa works to restore investor confidence after several investigations into the company&rs...Read More

Over the years, I've gotten A LOT of questions about Social Security.After all, the program is essentially an ongoing series of tax hikes, expansions, tweaks, benefit reductions, and other "fixes" that amount to a labyrinth of rules, regulations, and complicated decision trees.Some of these topics also foster tons of emotion.For example, a woman named Sue once told me:"I personally believe that So...Read More

Nickel Intraday – SELL Nickel at CMP 942.40 for Target 935 – 931 with SL Above price 950. Trade 2 lotsAFTER POST CONTENT Read More

BERLIN (Reuters) - A stronger-than-expected rebound in German industrial output in March, and a jump in exports in the same month, helped ease concerns on Tuesday that growth in Europe’s biggest economy could have come to a standstill at the start of the year.The Federal Statistics Office said industrial production rose 1.0 percent on the month, the strongest increase since November and abov...Read More

The US government's easing of sanctions on Rusal benefits the Russian aluminium producer's employees, US consumers of the metal - and any potential buyers of Oleg Deripaska's shareholding, writes Lord Copper."The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."Well, that's what Omar Kayyam s...Read More

While not exactly a "State-Of-The-Union" address this week, the London Metal Exchange's Update Forum in London - open to all - was a useful pit-stop event on what is gearing up to be a busy few months in its unfolding Strategic Pathway. On a widespread and varied menu, LME decisionmakers outlined current thinking and plans across the board. Among these are a couple of potentially tricky initiative...Read More

Losses in job and output terms in metals-consuming sectors in the United States in the fallout from the Section 232 probe threaten to outweigh any benefits to domestic metal-producing industries from the tariffs the US government subsequently introduced.In turn, the prices of metals that are strongly correlated to the performance of metal-consuming sectors - such as AISI 4130, a widely used medium...Read More

Base metals on the London Metal Exchange ended mostly lower at the close of trading on Tuesday May 8, with aluminium and zinc bucking the trend. Tin's three-month price was the most significant downward move in the complex, falling 1.5% and reaching a low of $20,865 per tonne during the afternoon.The drop comes after prices remained firmly above $21,000 per tonne throughout April, largely due to c...Read More

Physical iron ore trading and prices stayed tepid on Tuesday May 8 despite gains in the futures market.Metal Bulletin 62% Fe Iron Ore Index: $66.80 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.46 per tonne Metal Bulletin 58% Fe Premium Index: $55.54 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.02 per tonne Metal Bulletin 65% Fe Iron Ore Index: $85.20 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.10 per tonneMetal Bulletin 62% Fe C...Read More

Spot prices in the seaborne coking coal market pushed up on Tuesday May 8 after several transactions took place at higher rates. A premium mid-vol cargo with end May-laycan changed hands at $193 per tonne cfr China to an end-user, Metal Bulletin heard. A transaction involving a premium mid-vol cargo was said to have been agreed at $186.50 per tonne fob Australia, while a deal for a lower...Read More

Although base metals are under pressure in the short term, we have a bullish bias to our 2018 price forecasts given the supportive background of solid global economic growth and the fact that all six base metal markets look set to be in fundamental deficit this year. But each has a slightly different supply-side story and this aspect should be the main differentiator. For example, zinc's narrative...Read More

Despite Chinese winter smelter production cuts generally falling short of expectations and domestic stocks continuing to climb - both of which suggest the market remains far more comfortably supplied at this point than aluminium bulls had been anticipating - prices still rallied into the year-end to reach $2,290/tonne for the first time since March 2012.And after a New Year pull-back the strength...Read More

Copper prices were working lower during most of December and in the absence of any bullish triggers we had been expecting that trend to continue. But in late December, fund buying picked up aggressively, driving prices to a fresh multi-year high of $7,203/tonne. There was little fundamental justification for this and we should consider it a warning that speculators and investors feeling optimistic...Read More

Lead prices remain on their steady uptrend since the summer lows last year and in January have been eroding resistance around October's 6-year high above $2,600/tonne. We expect the underlying strengthening fundamentals, especially on the supply side, to maintain the uptrend this year. Primary producers may well struggle to respond to higher lead prices and we doubt there is much hoarded scrap aro...Read More

The Indian government's plans of hitting 300 million tonnes of steel capacity by 2030 sounds overambitious in the current scenario given that output only managed to reach the 101 million tonne mark in 2017 - indicating three-fold (Read More

After suffering for some seven years through to 2015, the world's steelmakers have had cause for cheer over the past couple of years. After some heavy losses and write-downs, they finally appear to have emerged from the wreckage of the global financial crisis. An economic upswing has taken root in most regions of the world, Chinese steel output and export growth has slowed noticeably, and steel pr...Read More

For a number of years problems at Ilva, the largest steelworks in Europe, have been casting shadow over the performance of the whole Italian steel industry. Will an acquisition of Ilva by a consortium led by ArcelorMittal, now in its final stage, be a game changer for the market?Following multiple reports of environmental and health problems caused by the Taranto plant, in 2013 Ilva was placed und...Read More

China announced that it had terminated steel production in all the country's illegal induction furnaces by the end of June last year. The majority of the operators in China are primarily small size private mills that use low quality scrap to produce substandard rebar. These rebars are mixed with grade III (HRB400) rebar and sold at a discount to construction contractors. For a long period, the gov...Read More

Gold is off to a quiet start to the week on contradictory macro forces.Speculators cut massively their net long positions over April 24-May 1, the CFTC shows.ETF investors sold gold last week for the first time in 5 weeks, FastMarkets estimate.Gold-bulls enjoyed 2 good macro news. But their actual impact was rather disappointing.I made a change in my trading positioning. Time to focus on BAR - the...Read More

The closure of some induction furnaces in China in 2016 followed by the government's crackdown on all unlicensed IFs in mid-2017 freed up some scrap volumes, albeit arguably of low-quality material. Chinese domestic scrap prices came under pressure from the increased supply, which prevented them from keeping pace with the rise in steel and other raw material markets in the fourth quarter of 2016;...Read More