Key data from Fastmarkets' pricing session in Europe on Wednesday February 3. Key drivers European titanium scrap markets resumed price increases over the week on tightening supplies. Both low and high tin content turnings are particularly hard to source, with other feedstock to make ferro-titanium, such as vacuum-grade and sponge, also pushing higher as alternative feeds are sought.Scrap price g...Read More

Prices for steel hollow sections in Europe remained unchanged this week after feedstock prices begin to plateau following a period of upward movement, sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday February 3.Fastmarkets' price assessment for steel sections (medium), domestic, delivered Northern Europe was ?,?850-870 ($1,022-1,046) per tonne on Wednesday, unchanged week on week.After weeks of increases for...Read More

Turkey exported 5,451,349 tonnes of flat steel products in 2020, a decrease of 2.82% compared with 5,609,697 tonnes in 2019, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK).The country exported 566,436 tonnes of flat steel in December 2020, a 121.59% increase year-on-year compared with the 465,853 tonnes exported in December 2019, the institute said in a recent statement.The main reason for...Read More

A summary of Glencore's 2020 full-year production report for the coal sector, released on Wednesday February 3, 2021.In brief In the second half of 2020, Glencore started various proactive market-related supply reductions in relation to coal production from Australia. The company has maintained its full-year 2021 guidance for coal production at 109-117 million tonnes, however, there will be cautio...Read More

A scheme in India to retire and tax older vehicles will increase the supply of scrap to its domestic market, if its implementation goes ahead after years of false starts, market sources told Fastmarkets.On January 25, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, approved a proposal for a green tax on older vehicles and the scrapping of some vehicles, a government document sho...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Wednesday February 3 that are worth another look.ArcelorMittal Italia has resumed operations at blast furnace (BF) No2 and coke battery No9 at its Taranto steel plant in the south of Italy, the producer said on February 3.Rio Tinto...Read More

Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States have remained in the $57- to $58-per-hundredweight ($1,140- to $1,160-per-short-ton) range, with most market participants indicating that the market has not yet reached its tipping point.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $57.68 per cwt ($1,153.60 per ton) on Wednesday February 3, down by 0.22% from $57.81 per c...Read More

Treatment charges for both zinc and lead concentrates fell in the last week of January 2021, moving for the first time since November 27 last year, in Fastmarkets' latest assessments.Market sentiment played a large part in driving TCs lower, because even with most producers recovering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the mining of zinc and lead, significant tenders were concluded at sh...Read More

Prices for steel hollow sections in Europe remained unchanged this week after feedstock prices begin to plateau following a period of upward movement, sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday February 3.Fastmarkets' price assessment for steel sections (medium), domestic, delivered Northern Europe was ?,?850-870 ($1,022-1,046) per tonne on Wednesday, unchanged week on week.After weeks of increases for...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Wednesday February 3 that are worth another look.ArcelorMittal Italia has resumed operations at blast furnace (BF) No2 and coke battery No9 at its Taranto steel plant in the south of Italy, the producer said on February 3.Rio Tinto...Read More

The frenzy of buying activity in silver, attributed to a group of retail investors using the Reddit forum r/WallStreetBets and other social media sites, is waning.The silver surge - which began on January 27 and saw the price of the industrial metal soar to an eight-year high of more than $30 per oz before slipping to just below $27 per oz by Tuesday January 2 - followed a phenomenal upswell in th...Read More

Sector expert Michael Ballanger ruminates on how the storming of the U.S. Capitol has affected both America's reputation and the precious metals markets, as well as on the value of "value."The events of this week are dominating the news cycle, with a sitting president days away from being replaced while Congressional and Senatorial leaders debate whether he should be impeached immediatel...Read More

Below is our long term goldforecast, it continues to be bullish on a monthly basis, despite the turbulenceof 2020 gold has performed well and a pause for a few months is entirelyreasonable given the speed of its initial acceleration. As you can see from our monthlychart, gold is clearly at significant levels - hovering around the 2011 highs, theunderlying structure of the market is still very posi...Read More

A global reshuffling of metallurgical coal trade flows and a limited supply of the steelmaking raw material have caused seaborne prices to spike in recent weeks.Global reshuffleIn the seaborne market, coking coal cargoes from the United States and Canada flowed to China after the East Asian country imposed a ban on the import of Australian coal in October 2020.Chinese steelmakers who could no long...Read More

In this first trading week of 2021, a new investment theme appears to be emerging. That theme can be summed up in a single word – reflation.A resurgence of inflation is being priced into asset classes across the board. Stocks are rallying to new records. Shares of Tesla and alternative energy companies are going to the moon. Marijuana stocks are suddenly back in vogue. Bitcoin is going bonke...Read More

A hazy outlook for China's ferrous sector after the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday is overwhelming the Asian steel industry, resulting in a market divided on prices and purchasing decisions, sources told Fastmarkets this week.Steel demand"The situation for the Chinese steel market is unclear now. It's not clear whether demand will rebound after the Chinese New Year. Many market participants in...Read More

2021 started off well for gold. It’s not surprising, as January is usually positive for the yellow metal, but the Georgia runoff results may constitute an additional bullish factor in the longer term.What a start to the new year! Gold has begun 2021 very well : as the chart below shows, the price of the yellow metal (London A.M. Fix) increased from $1,891 on December 31, 2020 to $1,947 on Ja...Read More

If you follow our research, you already know my research team and I have authored multiple articles related to how Metals and Miners are poised for a big rally in 2021 and beyond.  But do you understand what this means for other market sectors and assets?  Are you ready for one of the most dynamic investing environments we’ve seen since 1945 or earlier? Gold and Miners are showing...Read More

The thing that most likely raisedquite a few eyebrows this week was – in addition to gold’s recent move byitself – the fact that gold rallied mostly without the dollar’s help. Yesterday(Jan. 5) I wrote that one swallow doesn’t make a summer and that a singlesession rarely changes much.We didn’t have to wait for long – thesituation seems to be getting back...Read More

Zinc's price was nearly 2% higher on the London Metal Exchange with dip-buying having started and futures prices edging upward on Wednesday February 3, following two days of decreases, with the easing of the Dollar Index helping to support metal prices.Zinc's three-month price closed 1.8% higher at $2,615 per tonne on Wednesday at 5pm, the first time it has closed above the $2,600 per tonne mark s...Read More