Metals

May 19, 2011 at 07:23 | Stuart Burns

The iron ore price has been taken as a bellwether for the commodities super-cycle in recent years. Steel production in China has been at the core of that country’s growth…

May 16, 2011 at 07:59 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

In the days of olde, the prices of agricultural commodities were determined by the birds, the bees, and Mother Nature. No more. The Mississippi River basin is suffering once in…

May 14, 2011 at 15:30 | Stuart Burns

There was a time (and I can remember it) when the streets of Shanghai at rush hour were a manic surge of bicycles either waiting at lights or streaming across…

May 12, 2011 at 20:04 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

With gold crashing through to $1,500 this morning, I thought that I would once against re-examine the fundamentals for the barbarous relic. That is most easily done by reading the…

May 11, 2011 at 08:23 | Economywatch

No sooner had we breathlessly reported April’s record highs for gold and silver, at over $1,500 and close to $50 per troy ounce respectively, than commodities stage a ‘flash crash’,…

May 06, 2011 at 07:39 | Economywatch

In a shocking report by Frederick Kaufman that has been featured on the Foreign Policy website, the role of Goldman Sachs and its Wall Street cohort in creating the food…

May 05, 2011 at 13:23 | Taras Berezowsky

Just as we finally began wondering when the commodity bubble would burst, some troubling signs in the precious metals market – namely silver and gold – are pointing to…

May 05, 2011 at 09:24 | Stuart Burns

Rising copper prices in the last few days may lead buyers to believe normal business has resumed for the copper bull run. The copper price had been rising strongly last…

May 03, 2011 at 09:31 | Taras Berezowsky

Speculators, regional unrest and sovereign debt are driving up prices higher than ever in all commodity classes – food, oil, cotton, metals – and the global markets are once again…

Apr 29, 2011 at 08:08 | Stuart Burns

Reading the runes for the zinc market has become quite a challenging exercise. The price has been one of the success stories (if you are a producer) of the global…

Apr 28, 2011 at 08:06 | Taras Berezowsky

Earlier this week we mentioned that platinum is again on the rise, and prospects for the metal are looking good. However, in the wake of the supply chain nightmare the…

Apr 27, 2011 at 08:20 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

One of the great asset management blunders of all time has to be the EC’s decision to sell its gold reserves in the wake of the launch of the Euro…

Apr 26, 2011 at 21:40 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

“Watch where the big companies make their direct investments and that is where the markets will follow.” That golden rule is what the head of investments at JP Morgan, Carl…

Apr 25, 2011 at 09:36 | Taras Berezowsky

Forget about China’s slight dip in demand for copper – the red metal is still red hot all over the world. So hot that copper crimes undeniably rising more than…

Apr 21, 2011 at 09:11 | Taras Berezowsky

We know that 2011 began with a rocky start – the Middle East uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya turned the status quo upside down, the sovereign debt of European…

Apr 09, 2011 at 08:14 | Stuart Burns

In spite of our TV screens being bombarded with news about Middle East unrest and the financial pages of our papers reporting seemingly endless stories about European debt problems, metal…

Apr 07, 2011 at 06:49 | Taras Berezowsky

Much has been speculated and written about the Egyptian and Libyan crises as they relate to the gold market, but another, perhaps even more volatile situation, has been brewing in…

Apr 06, 2011 at 07:13 | Stuart Burns

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…

Apr 04, 2011 at 01:43 | Stuart Burns

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…

Apr 01, 2011 at 04:36 | Stuart Burns

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…