There’s an overwhelming sense of déjà vu as far as the gold market is concerned. Two years ago during December 2015, we witnessed the first US Fed rate hike since the 2008 GFC – a 25-basis point increase. This followed years of promises, threats and jawboning by the US Federal... Show More
Gold’s best friends at present are the US Federal Reserve and Donald Trump. The US dollar is weakening as the opposition of two more Republican senators to the US healthcare bill this week meant the measure is effectively dead in its current form. Show More
Cardinal Resources was one of the best-performing emerging gold plays of 2016, after having invested considerable amounts of time, energy and money in exploring, appraising and steadily de-risking its multi-million ounce Namdini gold project in Ghana to an acceptable level. All of this activity happened at just the right time... Show More
This time last year copper was in serious trouble - it had just hit its lowest level since 2009. What followed was a period of consolidation until the US presidential election in November, when prices lifted to 18-month highs on the back of Donald Trump's victory - and bullishness about... Show More
With A$ gold prices continuing their strong 15-year run, it's interesting that there are relatively few new gold sector production opportunities of reasonable scale available to investors at the present time. Most budding gold hopefuls have already made the transition to production status over recent years, with the balance having... Show More
There's further encouraging news for the outlook for industrial metals in 2017. The World Bank in its just-released January 2017 Commodity Markets Outlook is forecasting strong gains for industrial commodities such as energy and metals during 2017, due to tightening supply and strengthening demand. The Bank has raised its metals... Show More
As a follow up to my most recent commentary on gold and interest rates, I have attached what I consider to be two very interesting slides. The first relates to the net positioning of two of the most widely traded long-term US Treasury futures - 10-year and 5-year Treasuries. It... Show More
Most pundits are universal in viewing an interest rate increase as negative for gold. As gold is a non-yielding asset, this therefore is negative for gold - or so the narrative goes. The key however is not rising interest rates per se, but the 'real' interest rate - that is,... Show More
Earlier this week I wrote about the impact of funds buying back into commodities during 2016, including record net long positions that have driven the LME index of prices up by 36% since 1 January 2016. Well, there's further solid evidence of growing fund interest in commodities, with the latest... Show More
Most commodities rose solidly (even strongly) during 2016, but uranium missed the party badly – it fell by 41% and hit a 12-year low of $20/lb during November. What a far cry from its peak of $137/lb in mid-2007, when oil hit $150 a barrel and most commodities enjoyed a... Show More
A lot has changed in the commodity space over the past 12 months. For starters the London Metal Exchange (LME) index of prices fell to 2,049 during January 2016, but it’s since recovered strongly to 2,799 (graphic 1). This appears to reflect a very significant situation – the worst seems... Show More
Major gold miners face a dilemma - robust demand for their product, but question marks over how they will meet demand. Annual gold production is currently running at record levels, but will it be able to sustain itself - given slashed exploration budgets, falling levels of new discoveries and declining... Show More
Over recent weeks we’ve highlighted the reasons why gold can thrive under a Trump presidency – and defy experts forecasting a plunge to below $1,000/oz. Firstly, an appreciating US dollar is lousy for US exports as it makes them more expensive, with nations disinclined to buy US exports when the... Show More
2016 played host to a significant resource sector rejuvenation – and all indications are that this momentum will be maintained into 2017. This is reflected in the Australian Small Resources Index graph below, which rose by 70% during 2016. Not surprisingly this was driven by a dramatic performance by commodities... Show More
2016 has played host to a significant resource sector rejuvenation. Quality smaller companies have once again been able to raise funding for exploration, appraisal and development activities, markets are reacting positively to favourable company news, and share prices are generally moving in the right direction. The proof of the pudding... Show More
We first introduced Cardinal Resources on livewire around two months ago, when the stock was trading around $0.28 - and it's since maintained the positive momentum established over the past 12 months, where it's risen from a low of $0.06 to a recent high of $0.57. Cardinal isn't a producer,... Show More
Over recent weeks we’ve discussed the various fundamental reasons for the strong performance of firstly gold, then silver. After being outperformed by gold, silver has played catch-up and realigned in line with the traditional gold-silver ratio. In early March 2016, the ratio moved to highs of over 83:1 (the highest... Show More
What’s significant about gold's resurgence is that it’s not only smaller investors and larger funds buying gold - central bank purchases have been quietly and consistently on the rise. My attention was drawn to a report published by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIM), which concluded that “gold... Show More
Silver appears to be playing a game of catch-up with respect to its big brother, gold. It's recently touched US$21 for the first time in two years, driven by the same factors that are driving gold - Brexit fall-out, negative interest rates, economic uncertainty, US rate rates on hold and... Show More
For many investors with long memories, zinc and the companies that mine it, are to be voided at all costs. It's a sector that has proven problematic for various reasons, dating back to companies like Pasminco in the 1990s. Quite simply, it's not easy to consistently turn a profit in... Show More
