Metals

• Simon Hunt’s View on the Copper Market and Metal Prices

  When I saw Simon Hunt was being interviewed by Mineweb’s Geoff Candy, I couldn’t resist checking out the podcast. Simon Hunt has been an active market expert for longer than most people have been out of short pants and there isn’t much in the market he hasn’t seen before. Candy’s interview ranged across various issues related to copper, the first being the level of real verses apparent copper demand in Asia, an issue Hunt has spoken out on in the past. Having just returned from China, Hunt’s belief that much of the copper consumption in recent years has been for…

• Will Tin Prices Continue to Rise this Year?

  Tin has been one of the wonder boys of recent months, powering up to over $32,000 per ton in the early part of the year, falling back briefly to $28,000 in March and then forging back up to over $31,000 while other superstars like copper have struggled. Source: LME So what on earth are tin buyers meant to make of this — and can they expect prices to continue to rise this year? Many buyers are exposed to tin prices second-hand, by which I mean they consume tin plate where they are exposed to both steel and tin fluctuations and…

• Will Silver Prices Continue their Incredible Run

  An article in Mineweb last week reported that silver imports in India had dropped off dramatically this year and suggested the high price may be to blame. Silver imports into India from April 2010 to February 2011 dropped to 343 tons from 451.5 tons in the same period of 2010. The largest precious-metal importing region is Gujarat, where nearly 162 tons were imported in January, but dropped over 70 percent in February to 47 tons and were reported by an official of the Gujarat State Export Bureau as reaching on 16 kgs in March, by the 18th. The price is…

• Palladium Looking Attractive for Investors

  If you want to see the one precious metal that has been beaten senseless by the disaster in Japan, take a look at Palladium (PALL). Thanks to its close ties to the auto industry, the white metal has plummeted by 22% since its February peak. Similarly used platinum (PPLT) has been pared back by 9%.  If you believe in the “V” economic scenario that I described in a previous article, and the auto industry specifically, these should be the first metals that you pile back into. Palladium was one of my star performers last year, soaring by 112% since my…

• Base Metal ETF's and the Commodity Boom

  Figuring out the best investment plays on the recent commodity boom we’ve been seeing isn’t an open and shut case. There are many different factors to consider; apart from the “what” (what metals should I be investing in?), the “why” (are metals a safe bet with all the volatility surrounding them?) is just as important. Think of the “tail” risks, as some analysts call them, that the world has on its plate right now: first the massive European credit downgrades of the national economies of Greece/Portugal/Ireland etc., then the domino effect of Middle Eastern revolt, then the horrific quake and…

• A Big Pot of Gold in Libya Could Finance Gadhafi's Long War

  As the international military forces are descending upon Libya as we speak, some people have dismissed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's vow of a 'long war to victory' delivered via a telephone call to state television on Sunday, March 20.  After all, many military experts have suggested that Gadhafi's days are numbered since the number of soldiers loyal to Gadhafi could be fewer than 10,000.  Moreover, US and European governments have imposed sanctions and frozen Libyan assets worth billions of dollars, including the central bank, sovereign wealth fund and state oil company cutting off funding for further support activities....unless Gadhafi has…

• Guess Whos Buying Gold

  With gold threatening to break out to a new all-time high, and silver having already done so, some interesting facts are coming out about the precious metals market. It turns out that Iran has been a major buyer, with the Financial Times reporting that the rogue Islamic nation has bought 300 metric tonnes in recent years. The leadership of this terrorist state has made very public its disdain for the US dollar, and they have been putting their money where their mouth is. We all knew that emerging market central banks were major drivers of the price for the barbarous…

• Gold Report: Manipulation vs. Intervention

  There is a thin line between intervention (normally by the government, government-related institutions, or more generally, politicians) and manipulation (negative connotation – as in “influence”). The (sometimes massive) interventions on the bond and currency (foreign exchange) markets are official and legitimised. The German minister of economic affairs, Rainer Brüderle, has recently confirmed that the Federal Reserve Bank intervenes on the foreign exchange market . He pointed out that it was normal and customary for the central banks to do so, as every central bank had a target band for the exchange rate of the own currency. It would therefore be…

• Arguments For and Against Gold Ownership

  Stories and opinions on whether to buy or sell gold seem to be a dime a dozen these days (more likely, it has always been this way), and there’s no better time for a gold rush of this coverage than the climate we have now: First, whole European governments and their economies essentially went belly-up; then protests erupted across the Middle East from Tunisia to Bahrain, upending decades of authoritarian governments; and then to top it all off, an earthquake unlike we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes caused a massive tsunami strike off Japan’s east coast. With stocks and many…

• Chinese Money and Conflict Minerals in The Democratic Republic of Congo

  It would seem that in spite of democracy, not much changes in The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). To say bribery, corruption, theft, tax evasion and coercion are rife in the DRC is to invite accusations of western imperialist bigotry and the unjustified use of stereotypical labels from many quarters, but the reality is business and indeed much of anything involving money in the DRC does not operate to standards widely assumed by the rest of the world as fair and open. Four years after signing what was said to be a US $9 billion minerals-for-infrastructure deal with China, President…