Commodities

Ahead of the Herd’s Rick Mills ponders the ramifications of the trade war resulting in China embargoing exports of critical metals to an under-supplied US.

Global iron ore prices continued their surge on Wednesday jumping another 3.7% to more than $US105 a tonne – another five year plus high.

The uranium spot price continues to drift lower.

Global iron ore prices have finally topped the $US100 a tonne mark for the first time in five years, thanks to renewed concerns about the stability of supplies from Brazil where there are reports of signs of instability at a mine dam wall owned by Vale.

Gold futures fell Friday to settle at their lowest in more than two weeks on Friday, to be also down over the week as the US-China trade war burbled along and American consumer confidence rose strongly.

Oil is moving back towards centre stage as producers held a preliminary meeting on Sunday ahead of the next round of OPEC and non-OPEC producer talks next month.

FOMO among major miners BHP and Rio Tinto was on full display in Barcelona this week at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch mining conference.

Global iron ore prices are within sight of topping the $US100 a tonne mark for the first time since 2014 after another rise on Thursday.

Brazilian miner Vale is looking at spending up to $A3.5 billion ($US2.5 billion) expanding the dry processing capacity of iron ore mines over the next five years.

Despite the sharp slide in China’s production and investment in April, there were some sharply divergent trends in output by industry. For example, crude steel production – the figure along with iron ore, coal and LNG import data of great interest to Australia – increased strongly.

The start of higher tariffs on $US200 billion of Chinese imports left gold and metals markets all but unmoved on Friday and last week.

Ahead of the Herd’s Rick Mills notes global demand for zinc and lead means a step-up in exploration is critical.

Another surprise from China’s monthly trade report – instead of another rise in exports, in April, the data showed a fall, raising questions if the trade war with the US was biting deeper than previously thought.

Iron ore prices have jumped above $US96 a tonne despite the confusion about President Trump’s threat to impose higher tariffs on $US200 billion of Chinese imports into the US from Friday.

Oil prices fell last week despite a small gain on Friday off the back of the better than expected April jobs data and a dip in the value of the US dollar.

Gold prices went nowhere in the first quarter of this year and would have fallen sharply had it not been for a continuation of the strong central bank buying that dominated the market for all of 2018.

Oil futures slid sharply on Friday after a worried President Donald Trump issued pleas to OPEC to lower prices.

Gold futures rose Friday after in the wake of better than expected first-quarter economic growth in the US surprised markets.

Oil futures fell for a second day despite Brent crude topping $US75 a barrel on Thursday for the first time this year, but gold futures notched up a second successive, tiny, daily gain.

Ahead of the Herd’s Rick Mills explains why the rare element palladium is becoming ever more valuable.

In a move designed to kill off Iran’s oil revenues, the US has demanded that all buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases effective May 1 or face sanctions.

The US move to end exemptions on oil deals with Iran Monday sent Comex gold futures up from the more than four-month low hit last week in trading before the Easter break.

Don’t believe the alarmist nonsense around the markets (including silly figures in Fairfax Media website reports during the day) about the impact of a court decision in Brazil which will see a key iron ore mine of Vale allowed to return to production.