China’s unwrought copper imports declined by 7.2% year-on-year to 837,000 metric tons in the first two months of 2025, customs data on Friday showed, due to increased domestic smelting capacity that reduced the need for additional imports.
Deliverable copper stocks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange stood at 268,337 tons on February 28, more than double the 83,174 tons recorded on January 3.
Source – Reuters
Under this agreement, Hudbay will subscribe for 11,852,064 common shares of Arizona Sonoran at C$1.68 per share.
Arizona Sonoran president and CEO George Ogilvie said: “We are pleased and appreciative to welcome this further endorsement of our project and the go-forward plan by the team at Hudbay. It is the company’s objective to develop Cactus to be a significant producer of copper cathodes for direct use by industry in the state of Arizona and the larger US supply chain.
“We welcome Hudbay, a mid-tier base metal producer with decades of base metal successes in the Americas and a strong existing footprint in Arizona, as a larger and increasingly engaged shareholder, able to lend its experience and expertise as we advance and develop Cactus.”
Source – Global Data
Gold has outperformed the U.S. dollar and the S&P 500 by more than 6% across the 11 days when tariffs announcements dominated the news this year, according to J.P. Morgan.
Source – Seeking Alpha
“During the last three days, gold is up over 8% and on pace for its largest three-day move since March 2020,” Bespoke Investment Group said in a note Friday morning. “Before that, you would have to go back to the financial crisis to find the last time it rallied as much in three days.”
“Gold may be catching a bid, but the dollar has floundered,” said Bespoke. “If you were looking for bonds to provide some ballast in your portfolio this week, you didn’t get it with Treasuries.”
Source – Market Watch
Gold prices rallied above $3,100 per ounce for the first time on Monday, on course for its biggest quarterly gain in over 38 years, as global tariffs and geopolitical tensions push investors toward safe-haven bets.
“Trump’s unpredictable trade policy has been the key driver for gold so far in 2025, with prices up by more than 16% year-to-date, extending its momentum from 2024,” ING analysts said.
“We see uncertainty over trade and tariffs, along with central bank buying and inflows into ETF holdings continuing to buoy gold prices.”
Source – Seeking Alpha
Spot prices hit another record high of $3,357.40 per troy ounce on Wednesday before falling back after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said President Donald Trump’s tariffs were “significantly larger” than expected.
The Goldman analysts said that stresses in bond markets “increase our conviction that gold is uniquely positioned to hedge recession risk.”
The bank’s economists say there’s a 45% chance of a US recession in the next 12 months. If that happens, the analysts said gold could hit $3,880 by the end of the year — or even as much as $4,500 under certain scenarios.
Source – Markets Insider
“Investors around the world have started the year looking for protection against sticky and potentially rising inflation, fiscal debt worries and the unpredictability of Trump,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodities strategy at Saxo Bank.
“The market is sleepwalking into a squeeze right now,” Daniel Ghali, senior commodity strategist at TD Securities, said in an interview. “People are completely disregarding this risk.”
Source – Bloomberg / Yahoo Finance
