Author: Victoria

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Copper and Aluminum drop

Base metal prices plunged early Friday, with three-month benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange recently -3.7% at $8,985.50/metric ton and three-month aluminum  -1.4% at $2,422.50/ton, as President Trump’s worse than expected tariffs trigger global growth slowdown fears, sparking a selloff in industrial metals and mining equities.

Copper and aluminum have dropped 8.7% and 7.7%, respectively, so far this week, as the tariffs drag down demand forecasts

Trump hit China with a 34% “reciprocal” tariff on top of existing duties, and China announced Friday that it will likewise impose 34% tariffs on all U.S. goods starting April 10.

“While we remain structurally bullish copper in the long run, weaker global GDP and copper demand growth risk delaying the deficit we expect to see in the market this year,” Goldman Sachs wrote.

Source – Seeking Alpha

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KY gold and silver tax bill gets governor sued

In a complaint filed in Boone Circuit Court on March 27, the same day the legislation was delivered to the secretary of state’s office, an online bullion exchange and three Northern Kentucky residents said they and others are owed refunds on taxes improperly collected for their precious metals in the past eight months, naming Gov. Andy Beshear and several state offices as defendants.

The state representative, a frequent foil to Beshear who told colleagues in the House he sponsored the bill to ensure Kentuckians do not “pay taxes that were never lawful in the first place.”

HB 2 ensures the sale, use, storage or other consumption of “bullion currency” — gold, silver, platinum and other precious metals — cannot be taxed, overriding a line-item veto by Beshear that was included in a separate bill passed in 2024.

HB 2, which was filed in January and approved on party-line votes in the House and Senate, allows anyone who paid taxes on gold and silver after that Aug. 1 deadline to seek a refund in court.

Source – Courier Journal

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Central banks will keep gold shining

“While traditionally inflation and real yields have been the main drivers of gold prices, recently central bank buying has emerged as the primary catalyst behind the current gold price increase,” according to a recent research note by Bank of America’s Global Commodity Research’s Franciso Blanch and Irina Shaorshadze.

George Milling-Stanley, chief gold strategist at State Street Global Advisors, also believes central-bank buying will keep gold humming this year, but he also sees two additional drivers. 

Source – Fox Business

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Gold and silver fall

Spot gold was down 0.4% at $3,101.01 an ounce, as of 0710 GMT. Still, bullion was on track for a fifth consecutive weekly gain, buoyed by its safe-haven appeal that aided gold to reach three record highs this week.

“Gold tends to rally amid difficult-to-price uncertainty – like the start of a war – but tends to lose that support once markets learn how to price the risks involved,” said Ilya Spivak, head of global macro at Tastylive.

“The Trump administration seems to have picked a road, and while sentiment clearly doesn’t like it, at least the path of least resistance is more visible and easier to price. That is trimming some of gold’s “market confusion” premium.”

Spot silver declined 1.5% to $31.4 an ounce, platinum lost 0.8% to $944.80, and palladium was steady at $928.33.

Source – Reuters

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Copper safe from tariffs

The red metal, along with pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber, earns an exemption from “reciprocal” tariffs on most goods entering the U.S.

Referred to in a White House fact sheet as “responsive tariffs,” President Trump spells out the rationale for and specific examples of other nations’ tariffs in that April 2 fact sheet, fully titled “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Declares National Emergency to Increase our Competitive Edge, Protect our Sovereignty, and Strengthen our National and Economic Security.”

“Some goods will not be subject to the Reciprocal Tariff”

“Copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber articles”

Source – Recycling Today

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List of 50 exempt items Gold and Silver included

Non-tariff barriers are meant to limit the amount of imports/exports and protect domestic industries. In some relief to consumers globally, the Trump administration has kept some essential items exempt from the purview of these tariffs.

Items exempt from the tariffs levied by Trump include copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, lumber articles, certain critical minerals, as well as energy and energy products. 

Source – GoldSilver Reports

Long list of all exempt items when you go to the website. Hope that helps! – V.

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Gold and Silver forecast

Gold (XAU/USD) rose sharply during the Asian session on Thursday, reaching $3,126.67, as global markets reacted to renewed trade tensions. 

Silver (XAG/USD) is trading at $33.28, having touched a session low of $33.07. Despite gold’s upward momentum, silver’s response has been more restrained, weighed down by its industrial use case.

Source – FX EMPIRE

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Central Banks keep gold rally

Central banks are expected to help keep gold’s stunning rally going this year with buying aimed at further diversifying reserves away from the dollar due to risks stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies.

Spot gold hit its latest record at $3,167.57 a troy ounce on Thursday for a gain of 19% since the start of 2025 and a hefty 71% rise since the end of 2022.

“Emerging market central banks currently hold around 10% of their assets in gold. They should really hold 30% of their assets in gold,” said BofA commodity strategist Michael Widmer.

“From the central banking perspective (uncertainty) means less incentive to add Treasuries into portfolios and more incentive to actually de-dollarise it,” he said.

Source – Reuters

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Gold futures rising

Gold price have risen from Wednesday’s record close, propelled by fears that Trump’s tariffs will continue to hammer stocks and expectations that central banks will continue to hoard the precious metal. Gold futures for April delivery settled Wednesday at $3,139.90 a troy ounce, the latest notch in their 19% climb this year.

Source – The Wall Street Journal

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Freeport – McMoRan Inc is developing new technology

After 154 years of digging at Morenci, all the easily recoverable copper has been mined. Left behind are towering piles of waste rock that hold nearly 10 million tons of the metal seen as critical to global electrification. It’s a cache that could prove key to President Donald Trump’s ambition to boost US production of critical minerals.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc., which owns Morenci, is trying to develop technology that can burrow within those gigantic waste piles and extract low-grade copper that miners previously saw as too expensive and difficult to process.

“For a long time, we just didn’t think it was possible to recover any of this stuff,” said Robert Pollock, Morenci’s site manager, gazing up at a waste pile the size of a Manhattan office building. “But now, all this historical copper – we’re going after it.”

Source – Bloomberg