Is a 2021 market crash inevitable? It appears Warren Buffett is waiting for the other shoe to drop based on the stock market behaviour of late. On the last trading day of January, all three U.S. benchmarks finished lower. For the Dow Jones index, it was the worst week since October 2020.The Congressional Budget Office predicts it would take the U.S. economy to recover its pre-pandemic size until t...Read More

I'll be honest - covering the stock market isn't always exciting. Amid the massive hits and tragic misses, the fortunes made and lost every day, there's a mind-numbing amount of banality. The humdrum earnings reports, dry-as-a-bone financial filings, double-speak, generalities, boilerplate, and jargon...It can be, and often is, dull. But boy, this week was fun. Honestly, it's the most fun I've...Read More

(Updates with close of Friday trading, adds details on VIXperformance history)By April JoynerNEW YORK, Feb 5 (Reuters) - As the trading frenzy inGameStop Corp shares and other social media favoritesrecedes, investors are eyeing signs of potential market stressthat could weigh on broader stock performance in coming weeks.For now, U.S. equities appear to be looking past last week'ssurge in volatilit...Read More

An overview of the new energy materials markets and their price moves from the past week.Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange ended the first week of February on markedly positive figures, with nickel showing a day-on-day increase of 2% on Friday February 5 and zinc rising by nearly 4% since the start of the week, on a slowdown of the US Dollar Index.Nickel's three-month price showed the biggest reaction to the Dollar Index during the day on Friday, rising by 2.1% to $18,02...Read More

Customers should be given the choice to source aluminium on a spectrum of carbon levels and defining low-carbon aluminium by a numerical threshold could have unintended consequences, London Metal Exchange chief executive officer Matthew Chamberlain told Fastmarkets. Chamberlain noted the way of defining low-carbon aluminium by a number could be disruptive and counter-productive, during Fastmarkets...Read More

An overview of the new energy materials markets and their price moves from the past week.Read More

Adam HamiltonArchivesFeb 05, 2021This past week's silver-market action has been extraordinary, wildly unprecedented. Incredible torrents of capital deluged into the world's dominant silver exchange-traded fund. That came right after attempts to organize small traders to engineer a silver short squeeze on Reddit's famous wallstreetbets forum. While that group's apparent silver foray was fragmented...Read More

Copper concentrate treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) dropped marginally during the week to Friday February 5, with smelters continuing to stock up ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays.It is the second consecutive week that the Fastmarkets copper concentrates TC index, cif Asia Pacific has dipped below $40 per tonne / 4 cents per lb. It was calculated at $37 / 3.70 cents on Friday, compared...Read More

Brazil reported a 17.2% year-on-year decrease in alumina exports during January 2021, with the biggest reduction being in shipments from the port of Bel?(C)m, used by Norsk Hydro's Alunorte refinery, data from the ministry of economy showed on Thursday February 4.Alumina exports totaled 763,086 tonnes in January this year, down from 921,718 tonnes a year before.Export revenues reached $213.2 milli...Read More

Invoking former US president Donald Trump, David Brocas, head cobalt trader at Glencore's cobalt arm, said the LSE listed miner wants "to make cobalt in the DRC great again and fight [negative]Read More

The company forecasts its 2021 revenues to be in a range of $5.16-5.26 billion.December quarter net income came in at $148 million on $1.37 billion of revenue.Xylem president and CEO Patrick Decker said positive fourth quarter momentum was encouraging heading into the new year."Our end markets showed encouraging signs of recovery in the fourth quarter, with healthy orders trends and significant ba...Read More

Caterpillar said revenues were hit by lower demand for construction, energy and mining equipment and services, and the impact of changes in dealer inventories."Overall, we expect our sales in 2021 to be stronger due to the lack of dealer inventory reduction and improving market conditions. We also expect services revenues to increase during the year," chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby said on a results...Read More

Diversified miner South32 has declared force majeure on some shipments of South African manganese ore because of disruptions resulting from severe weather, Fastmarkets has heard.The Australia-based miner's announcement followed a similar announcement by South African state transportation provider Transnet.Transnet's force majeure notice...Read More

An overview of the new energy materials markets and their price moves from the past week.Read More

An overview of the aerospace materials markets and their latest price moves.Ewa Manthey and Michael Greenfield in...Read More

The price of shredded steel scrap imported into India and Pakistan moved down in the week to Friday February 5 as a result of poor trading conditions, sources have told Fastmarkets.IndiaFastmarkets calculated its steel scrap, shredded, index, import, cfr Nhava Sheva, India, at $408.73 per tonne on Friday, down from $415.83 per tonne one week earlier.A deal was heard at the start of the week at $41...Read More

Chinese steelmakers have been actively bidding for Japanese import scrap cargoes at prices above the China domestic market level in recent days, sources have told Fastmarkets.At least two major steelmakers were heard making inquiries for scrap with Japanese trading houses and suppliers on Friday February 5. The hive of activity comes just ahead of China's Lunar New Year holiday next week, with som...Read More

With the exception of tin, base metals prices on both the London Metal Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange were firmer this morning, Friday February 5, suggesting there is little appetite for follow-through selling after recent bouts of weakness. Asian-Pacific equities were stronger this morning......as was the US Dollar IndexBase metalsThree-month tin prices were down by 0.4% at $22,880 pe...Read More

Junior miner Bacanora Lithium has signed a new joint venture agreement with offtake partner Ganfeng Lithium after the latter exercised the option to increase its stake in the Sonora lithium project to 50%, it said on February 1.Chinese lithium producer Ganfeng Lithium previously owned a 22.5% stake in Bacanora's Sonora lithium project in the Sonora state of Mexico. The completion of Ganfeng L...Read More