Although metals and mining stocks have seen an average 40 percent appreciation since the beginning of the year, the same sector was hit with declines of approximately 16 percent during the past few trading days.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Among the biggest decliners on the session were several metals and mining companies, even though […]

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A recent report in Purchasing.com was both contradictory and enlightening. Analysts at Commerzbank are predicting that energy costs will stay high, leading to higher aluminum prices. Energy accounts for 40 percent of the cost of primary aluminum, and new capacity is growing at only 4.5 percent as new projects are hampered by unprecedented rises in the cost of energy […]

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There’s a new type of event on the social scene: Gold parties.
Interested in throwing a party, but worried about costs? If a host wants to make money instead of spending it, a gold party allows them to convert unworn and unfashionable jewelry and knick-knacks into cool cash.
USA Today explains, “Rather than wait for bold gold to come […]

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It may be illegal (and so is not even officially admitted) but it appears pretty obvious that the Chinese authorities are playing hard ball in their iron ore price negotiations with Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. Vessels destined for the spot market require licences to discharge, not normally a problem in a country that imports […]

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We have written a lot over the last few weeks about the macro-economic situation the world’s metal markets find themselves in so it came as pleasure to connect with an old friend of ours Dan Kendall, President of ABC Metals to hear about life at the sharp end. ABC is a distributor of high quality […]

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While metals such as gold and copper have recently hit record highs, the future outlook is uncertain – particularly since oil and the global economy are adding to the volatility of the metals market.
Always considered the “safe haven” of metals, gold reached a record $992.95 an ounce earlier this week. Soon, it could even hit $1,000 an ounce. […]

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The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris has just released their Composite Leading Indicators (CLI) for the major economies. Despite the dry economic analysis, one can read some very interesting predictions. I should start here by defining CLI as a qualitative rather than quantitative measure of the trends in an economy. A […]

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As shipping company shares drop dramatically across the world’s stock markets, could the Baltic Exchange be pointing the way for the Global Trade market during the year ahead? Several days of sharp falls in London on the Baltic Exchange’s Dry Index caused major shipping corporation stocks to fall sharply this week, led by COSCO, China […]

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While many of you were undoubtedly enjoying your weekend — those of us in Chicago were trying to stay warm in 5 degree weather — I stumbled across an interesting article from the New York Times on how overseas investors are scooping up US companies often at fire sale prices. This should not come as […]

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While the rise in iron-ore prices will hurt steelmakers without their own iron resources, steelmakers with their own iron-ore are possibly about to hit payday – along with company investors. OneSteel of Australia, for example, was recently featured in an Andrew Harrison article in the Wall Street Journal as one of the few steelmaking companies […]

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