Phoenix-based Freeport also boosted its budget for the year by roughly 5% to $4.4 billion and forecast an increase for next year as well, surprising investors.
On an adjusted basis, the company earned 31 cents per share in the quarter, compared with the analysts’ average estimate of 20 cents per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Source – Reuters
Proposed designs for the obverses of the Proof 2027 and 2028 American Eagle platinum $100 coins — for the second and third years in the three-coin Charters of Freedom series — were recommended Feb. 18 by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee.
Source – Coin World
Gold futures posted their second consecutive strong gain on Tuesday, rising 3% in the two days since Moody’s downgraded its U.S. credit rating and amplified concerns over the debt and deficit spending.
The dollar slipped again, weighed down in part by cautious remarks about the economy by Federal Reserve officials and by President Trump’s failure so far to convince Republican holdouts in the U.S. House to support his sweeping tax and spending bill.
“Investors are reassessing the long-term outlook for U.S. sovereign risk. As such, safe-haven assets like gold could experience heightened demand,” Quasar Elizunda of Pepperstone said in a note.
Source – Seeking Alpha
Moody’s Corporation – (MCO) a New York-based company that owns Moody’s Investors Service that rates creditworthiness of companies, governments, and fixed income debt securities, and Moody’s Analytics.
Anglo American said it does intend to sell the remainder of its retained shares over time, and said that it will not hold any representation on the Anglo American Platinum board after the split.
Source – Morning Star
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
Goldman Sachs on Wednesday maintained its London Metal Exchange copper price forecasts for the next year, and said it expected the implementation of U.S. tariffs on copper imports to prevent a U.S. stock glut in the third quarter.
Goldman forecasts three-, six-, and twelve-month LME copper prices at $9,600, $10,000 and $10,700 per metric ton respectively. The bank flagged a near-term downside risk to prices from a trade policy update due to take effect on April 2.
Source – Reuters
Pataz has become Peru’s largest gold-producing region, in no small part due to artisan or informal mines, which operate under temporary REINFO permits.
“Gold is a curse for Pataz,” the mayor of Pataz, Aldo Mariño, told Reuters.
He said that despite the area’s great mineral wealth, his community lives in poverty, without basic services and on deteriorating or unpaved roads.
“This has been going on for several years, with the difference that now everything has collapsed. It’s due to the absence of the State,” he said. “People continue to die.”
Poderosa has reported the deaths of 39 workers in recent years in attacks on its facilities or small mines that supply it with gold. And in the last four years, 15 of the company’s high-voltage towers have been destroyed with explosives.
Source – Reuters
