European stocks opened higher Monday, while U.S. equity futures looked to extend their best start to a new year in more than a decade as investors continue to take markets higher amid bets on synchronised global economic growth, robust corporate earnings and supportive central banks. Futures prices suggest another run at record highs on Wall Street Monday after the best first week of a new tradi...Read More

The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Tuesday January 9.Aluminium was the only metal to end lower at the end of trading on the London Metal Exchange on Monday January 8. Read more in our live futures report.Here are how prices looked at the end of the day on Monday.NFEx Markets' chief operating officer and its most senior director, Mark Bradley, has resigned from the...Read More

Investing.com - Gold prices fell on Monday as the stronger dollar weighed after Friday’s weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report did little to alter expectations for further Federal Reserve rate hikes this year.Comex gold futures were trading at $1,317.00 a troy ounce by 03:54 AM ET (08:54 AM GMT).Prices of the precious metal were pressured lower as the dollar moved higher against a basket of...Read More

The Buritica mine construction is underway. After it's completed, it should produce 253,000 toz gold per year at an AISC below $500.The trial mining provided excellent results. The gold and silver production from the stopes was much higher than expected.An extensive drill program is underway; multiple drill targets will be tested in 2018.The Buritica project looks very good, and there are var...Read More

It may be a new year, but Russia makes no secret of its long-term dissatisfaction with U.S. politics, the dollar and, by extension, U.S. monetary hegemony in the world.Russia has been under U.S./Western economic sanctions for over three years. Meanwhile, oil prices have been "lower for longer," as the saying goes, due to global competition for market share from U.S. fracking. The overall impact of...Read More

The gold miners have had two solid years of returns in a row.Despite the strong gains over the last 2 years - and the spirited finish to 2017 - bearishness is still quite high in the gold stock complex.The final part of this consolidation is wrapping up (or has already) and this sector is about to enter Phase 2 of the bull market.This still oversold reading in the gold stocks, in combination with...Read More

Dear Reader,My readers know I'm not a bitcoin proponent. I don't deny that it's made some people a lot of money, but I believe bitcoin is a massive bubble right now.Yet it's been reported in some circles that I've recently come out in favor of bitcoin.It's not true.Now, it is true that I've stated my belief in blockchain technology, which is the technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies...Read More

Crazy volatility hit the cannabis markets last week after Attorney General Jeff Sessions shifted the Department of Justice's stance toward on pot.Previously, the DOJ was restrained by what's known as the "Cole Memo". An internal directive to not pursue cannabis companies operating legally according to state laws.When news broke that Sessions was rolling back this measure, pot stocks took a major n...Read More

Don’t look now, but things are starting to look up for Bitcoin again!(You can be forgiven if you didn’t realize that Bitcoin was NOT looking up just a week ago.)You see, midway through December, Bitcoin lost nearly half of its value, falling from a peak near $20,000 to below $11,000 in less than a week’s time. Naturally, such a dramatic decline took a lot of the excitement out of...Read More

The market's just four trading days into 2018 and we're already witnessing some downright crazy action...The major averages have posted a perfect record so far this year. The S&P 500 is up 2.6% after 2018's opening week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is up almost 3.4%. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies continue to go berserk. Dogecoin, an "altcoin" that was named after an internet meme, just saw its market...Read More

Dear Reader,More men die of jealousy than die of cancer, said Joseph Kennedy.Today, a brief reflection on that ignoble but staggeringly human emotion...It is said a man is jealous of his betters.But it is only partly true.The average man harbors no jealousy for the great man.He is not jealous of the Alexanders... the Caesars... the Napoleons of this world.These are men stamped from a finer metal.....Read More

The wrong people - rebels, outsiders, nerds and techies - got on the cryptocurrency boat while their insider/rentier “betters” blew it and are now raging bitterly onshore, watching the crypto boat sail away.The psychology of money, wealth and speculative manias is endlessly fascinating. Most of what’s written on these subjects focus on the process of building wealth as if it were...Read More

A group of Colorado School of Mines students traveled to Nepal over winter break to help build foot trails in the Mt. Everest region, and their service trip was featured in The Himalayan Times, an English-language newspaper in Nepal. The volunteers with Hike for Help Nepal also delivered about 400 pairs of shoes to low-income families in the area.Read More

I'm calling 2018 "The Year of Living Dangerously."That description might seem odd to lot of observers. Major U.S. stock indexes keep hitting new all-time highs. 2017 went down as the first calendar year in which the Dow Jones industrial average was up for all 12 months.Even in strong bull market years there are usually one or two down months as stocks take a breather on the way higher. Not last ye...Read More

A Los Angeles Times article about the Trump administration's plans to open coastal California waters to expanded drilling featured an interview with Peter Maniloff, assistant professor of economics and business at Colorado School of Mines.From the story:Oil is trading at about $60 a barrel - roughly the price that would make an offshore project profitable, said Peter Maniloff, an economist at Colo...Read More

Dear Reader,My regular readers are familiar with my use of the "snowflake and avalanche" metaphor.Avalanches emerge from unstable snowpacks on mountain slopes. The snowpacks resemble complex dynamic systems because each snowflake exists in a densely connected network with all of the others.When new snow comes, a single snowflake can land in such a way as to disturb some others, create a slide that...Read More

The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Tuesday January 9.Aluminium was the only metal to end lower at the end of trading on the London Metal Exchange on Monday January 8. Read more in our live futures report.Here are how prices looked at the end of the day on Monday.NFEx Markets' chief operating officer and its most senior director, Mark Bradley, has resigned from the...Read More

EDF has completed cold functional tests at the EPR reactor under construction at its Flamanville site in northern France. Flamanville unit 3 is scheduled to begin operating by the end of this year.The Flamanville EPR (Image: Alexis Morin and Antoine-Soubigou/EDF)Cold functional tests are carried out to confirm whether components and systems important to safety are properly installed and ready to o...Read More

INTL FCStone has merged its London Metal Exchange and precious metals departments, with the new unit headed by Barry Canham, the company said. In an email to the company's global metals team and seen by Metal Bulletin, INTL chief executive officer (CEO) for EMEA and Asia Philip Smith said that the move was made following the decision by Malcolm Leonard to retire after 46 years working in LME metal...Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were mostly lower at the close on Tuesday January 9, with only nickel trading in positive territory. The three-month nickel price climbed $160 per tonne higher while the cash/January-2018 nearby spread moved into a $3 per tonne backwardation. "The LME nickel market has tightened slightly since the start of the year, judging by the contraction in the...Read More