If you’ve been following our research, you already know how accurately we’ve been nailing the precious metals price moves.  We’ve been calling Gold and Silver accurately since early 2018 and continue to focus a good portion of our efforts in studying these incredible setups.  Let’s have a little fun and start with two charts from near July 20, 2019, to help our fo...Read More

Fastmarkets rounds up six key takeaways from its first Battery Materials Europe conference in Amsterdam, which took place on September 26-27.Battery boom warrants evolution of cobalt pricing mechanisms Cobalt hydroxide and cobalt sulfate account for a growing portion of the cobalt market, which reflects growth - and forecasts for future growth - in EV demand. While cobalt metal prices have traditi...Read More

One of the most common reasons to buygold is to use it as a stable store of value. This analysis uses 50years of history to test that common belief, and finds it woefully lacking - forit misses the best parts of investing in gold.The graph below will be developed, andwe will show that gold is instead a more sophisticated (and desirable) investmentthan most people realize. When properly understood,...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Tuesday October 1 that are worth another look.Chilean miner Codelco has increased its United States' annual copper cathode premium to 3.1 cents per lb for 2020 supply, making it the benchmark's highest level since 2016, sources close to the matter confirmed to Fastmarkets.The benchmark premium paid for the supply of aluminium to main Ja...Read More

By Andy Hecht: Crude oil is the energy commodity that powers the world. Over half of the world’s petroleum reserves are in the Middle East, which is the most turbulent political region on the face of the earth. Meanwhile, the United States is the leading consumer of crude oil. For many years, the US dependence on Middle Eastern oil contributed to its price variance. The Arab-Israeli War in t...Read More

Yield curve inversions have historicallybeen great for silver prices. Currently we are experiencing such a phenomena,and again it is evidence of conditions that are conducive to some impressivesilver rallies.Below, is a long-term chart showing thespread between the 10-year Treasure Note Yield and the 3-month Treasury Bill Rate. I have chosen these two to show data for along-term analysis. The...Read More

Long term trends take a long time toreverse.  One such trend compares goldmining stocks to the S&P 500 stocks. From 2002 until 2011 gold mining stocks outperformed generic stocks, ascan be seen in the following chart.  (Chartscourtesy Stockcharts.com).      The trend unmistakably featured miningstocks ($HUI) over the S&P 500 stocks. From 2011 until r...Read More

Tonight I would like to start out by looking at the old ratio combo chart that has the GOLD:XAU ratio chart on top with the XAU on the bottom. I’m not going to go over all the details the ratio combo chart has, only to emphasize the 20 year 6 point parabolic arc which shows how gold had been outperforming the XAU until the small double top at 24.33 in late 2015. When the parabolic arc was br...Read More

Following a flip in global steel and ferrous trade flow trends last year caused by economic jitters in Turkey, trade defenses by the United States and production cuts in China, this year it is steel prices that are turning upside down. Hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices are now below rebar prices in a phenomenon rarely seen outside of the Chinese domestic markets. HRC import prices in Vietnam have...Read More

Critical Mass - A point or situation at which change occurs.Just over a year ago Cameco made the difficult decision to close its MacArthur River and Key Lake mines, in response to low uranium prices, leaving the Canadian company’s flagship Cigar Lake facility as its only operating mine left in northern Saskatchewan, home to vast reserves of the nuclear fuel.  The mine closures by C...Read More

Fund manager Matt Geiger provides his overview of the resource market and shares some principles he is using to invest in today's market. The natural resource landscape has shifted dramatically since the end of 2018. At the time, we were still nursing our wounds from an unexpectedly vicious 2018 and hoping to avoid a repeat performance in 2019. I did speculate that "we may have already exited the...Read More

The whole battery supply chain will benefit from lithium benchmark pricing, Fastmarkets head of battery raw materials research William Adams says as he explores what is driving auto manufacturers to support this pricing mechanism. The auto industry is going through a period of unprecedented change due to companies introducing electric vehicles (EV) into their portfolios alongside internal combusti...Read More

The amount of global debt with negative yields soared to $16 trillion, or more than 25 percent of the market. This number has nearly tripled since October 2018. In July, even the 30-year German government bonds went negative for the first time ever, while Nordea Bank, a leading Danish bank, said it will begin offering 20-year fixed-rate mortgages with zero interest, as well as 30-year mortgages at...Read More

Just as we predicted, precious metals aresetting up another extended momentum base/bottom that appears to be aligningwith our prediction of an early October 2019 new upside price leg.Recent news of the US Fed decreasing the FedFunds Rate by 25bp as well as strength in the US stock market and US Dollar aseased fears and concerns across the global markets.  These concerns and fears are still ve...Read More

History may not repeat itself to the letter but it certainly rhymes. That’s what the Fed watchers would say now. The Fed cut the interest rates for the second time this year and the price of gold declined again. What is going on? Fed Trims Interest Rates by 25 Basis PointsYesterday, the FOMC published the monetary policy statement from its latest meeting that took place on September 17-18th....Read More

The dream of building a new world-class copper-gold mine in Pakistan in an area bordering Afghanistan and Iran has been dashed, for now at least. The saga of Tethyan Copper Co's (TCC) efforts to develop the Reko Diq mine found resolution last week with an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ruling in favor of TCC following a dispute that has rumbled on for years.TCC,...Read More

Ferro-alloys prices will continue to trade lower going into 2020 amid slowing economic and steel production growth, Fastmarkets analyst, Amy Bennett, told delegates at the North-American Ferro-alloys conference in Chicago last week."Although ferro-alloy prices will almost certainly trend lower in 2020, given the weakening economic fundamentals, we do not expect to see prices retreat to 2015/2016 l...Read More

Prices of cobalt metal, salts and hydroxide continued their upward momentum in September, while the chemical prices outperformed amid strong demand incited by concerns of supply tightness following the news on Glencore's Mutanda mine closure in early August. Price moves The rally in the benchmark cobalt price slowed in September with aggressive trader stockpiling drying up, amid limited restocking...Read More

Screened through gold producers and royalty companies narrowed down to Newcrest (NCMGF) and Newmont (NEM) for further research.Both companies have better than average free cash flow yields and sustainable levels of debt.Newcrest in particular has a low all-in sustainable cost of $720 per ounce.This article follows up on a hunch about getting gold exposure I talked about for my portfolio. In my tra...Read More

The three-month tin price on the London Metal Exchange was the standout performer at the close of trading on Tuesday October 1, closing over 2% higher amid high turnover while mixed trading pushed zinc futures 2.4% lower. Trading at an intraday low of $15,950 per tonne, LME tin's outright price broke past the $16,000-per-tonne threshold over the morning session, settling at $16,250 per tonne by 5p...Read More