BENGALURU, June 14 (Reuters) - Gold prices inched lower on Thursday as the Federal Reserve forecast two more U.S. rate increases this year after raising rates on Wednesday, although lingering worries over trade tensions between Washington and Beijing prevented steeper losses.FUNDAMENTALS* Spot gold XAU= was down 0.1 percent to $1,298.61 per ounce at 0047 GMT. It touched an over one-week low at $1,...Read More

June 19 (Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 .FTSE index is seen opening 4 points lower at 7,627 on Tuesday, according to financial bookmakers.* ANGLO AMERICAN: Miner Anglo American Plc AAL.L clinched hundreds of permits this month to explore for copper in a remote part of northern Brazil, Brazilian authorities said, as the growing electric vehicle market and a scarcity of shovel-ready mining projects...Read More

(Repeats June 26 column with no changes to the text. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)* Chilean copper production: https://tmsnrt.rs/2KnTcZ7By Andy HomeLONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - Copper has fallen almost nine percent in price over the last couple of weeks.In London three-month copper CMCU3 was this morning struggling to hold the $6,700 level, a chart a...Read More

* Asian shares hit 9-month lows as trade worries intensify* U.S. oil prices hit 3 1/2-year high as supply seen disruptedBy Hideyuki SanoTOKYO, June 28 (Reuters) - Asian stocks slumped to nine-month lows on Thursday on growing worries the U.S. administration's approach to trade is harming global economic growth even as it appeared to be modifying its approach to curb Chinese investments in U.S. tec...Read More

(Repeats June 26 column with no changes to the text. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)* Chilean copper production: https://tmsnrt.rs/2KnTcZ7By Andy HomeLONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - Copper has fallen almost nine percent in price over the last couple of weeks.In London three-month copper CMCU3 was this morning struggling to hold the $6,700 level, a chart a...Read More

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)* Chilean copper production: https://tmsnrt.rs/2KnTcZ7By Andy HomeLONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - Copper has fallen almost nine percent in price over the last couple of weeks.In London three-month copper CMCU3 was this morning struggling to hold the $6,700 level, a chart area last breached in early April.Copper has been cau...Read More

OPEC’s production-cutting deal had set the stage for the oil market in 2017, but base metals prices hinge on policy coming out of China.Industrial metals continue to see support from strong Chinese buying and the reflationary trade that followed Donald Trump’s election victory.However, analysts at J.P. Morgan think prices have run ahead of fundamentals, with the exception of zinc.The o...Read More

TORONTO — Nickel prices have jumped almost 40 per cent since bottoming out in January, yet most miners of the steelmaking metal are still bleeding cash at a rapid rate.Canadian nickel miner Sherritt International Corp. noted this week that more than 60 per cent of global output is losing money on a simple cash margin basis. Once capital spending and other costs are added in, the actual perce...Read More

After many months in the gutter, two of the world’s least-loved metals are enjoying an honest-to-goodness turnaround.Zinc and nickel are both soaring this summer after recovering from shocking depths early in the year. Zinc touched US$1.00 a pound on Thursday for the first time since mid-2015, while nickel jumped to a nine-month high of US$4.73 a pound. Zinc is up 48 per cent from its Januar...Read More

It feels like a lifetime ago, but only five months have passed since investors thought Canada’s two biggest copper miners were at risk of collapsing.In mid-January, Teck Resources Ltd.’s long-term notes traded as low as 38.5 cents on the dollar. Meanwhile, the debt of First Quantum Minerals Ltd., one of its chief rivals, traded between 40 and 45 cents. The mining industry was drowning...Read More

Well, that rally didn’t last long. BMO Capital Markets analyst Jessica Fung pointed out on Tuesday that copper prices have given back all of their gains so far from 2016. Prices rose as much as 7.5 per cent before they started to slip in March.And Fung said further declines are a strong possibility in the short term. She noted that June is typically a weak month for copper prices, the U.S. d...Read More

Commodity prices have finally risen to the point that miners can start new development projects, but the rally in metals prices also brings higher costs for producers.Both operating and capital costs tend to climb sharply during cyclical rallies for metals. However, some companies have proven more adept than others at generating returns in the face of this challenge.Stephen D. Walker, head of glob...Read More

The plunge in commodity prices has forced many mining companies to sell assets or metal streams to boost their liquidity. But their work is far from finished.TD Securities analysts Greg Barnes and Craig Hutchison studied the liquidity of base metal miners and found that if prices remain low, liquidity will become “extremely tight” for many of them by the end of 2017, if not sooner.&ldq...Read More

Falling base metal prices are putting major pressure on producer balance sheets, especially for those miners that are carrying a lot of debt. Canaccord Genuity analyst Peter Bures is among those cautioning investors to be very careful in this sector right now.“With producers feeling the squeeze of over-levered balance sheets amidst a backdrop of significantly lower commodity prices, we belie...Read More

With safety issues increasing the likelihood of a work stoppage at Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold Inc.’s Grasberg project in Indonesia, coupled with a strike set to begin Nov. 10 at the Antamina mine in Peru, the probability of a deficit in the copper market has significantly risen.Estimates suggest that these two labour disruptions could remove 84,000 tonnes of mined copper supply throu...Read More

First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and Lundin Mining Corp. have enough nickel exposure to provide investors with an opportunity to benefit from higher prices, but there are plenty of ways they differ.Neither company faces the risks associated with excessive nickel exposure since the primary focus of both companies is copper, but Tom Meyer, a mining analyst at CIBC World Markets, noted First Quantum&rsquo...Read More

Base metal stocks have been battered in recent months as commodity prices declined, regardless of their quality. Buying them after a sell-off is a risky proposition, so Raymond James analyst Alex Terentiew waded through the muck to determine which ones have been punished unfairly.He evaluated the stocks from a number of angles, including a sensitivity test to see how they would withstand a prolong...Read More

Copper already accounts for about 25% of overall revenue at Teck Resources Ltd., but the base metal’s role in the company’s portfolio should become even greater after 2014.Deutsche Bank’s Jorge Beristain, who was part of a group of analysts that recently toured two of Teck’s copper assets in Latin America, noted that ongoing expansion in the region points to approximately 2...Read More

It goes without saying that beating guidance is a good way to earn favour from investors. The market has been simply brutal to mining companies that failed to meet their own expectations — or those of analysts — in the last 12 months (just ask Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd).So which companies do a good job of meeting guidance, and which don’t? Canaccord Genuity base metal analysts Gary...Read More

The underperformance of Canadian equities versus their U.S. counterparts may be coming to an end.With investor sentiment towards U.S. stocks suggesting excessive optimism and recent comments from the Fed and ECB signaling a less dovish near-term stance, David Doyle of Macquarie Capital Markets thinks global equities may be entering a consolidation phase.The strategist believes this could bring abo...Read More