Total assets under management (AUMs) in gold-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) hit record highs of $271 billion in 2024, according to the World Gold Council (WGC).
This represented a 26% year-on-year increase and was driven by a soaring bullion price.
The yellow metal hit new all-time highs on 40 occasions last year, the WGC noted. Over the whole year, gold appreciated 26% in value to around $2,629 per ounce.
Source – Forbes
India has dispatched a team of geologists to Zambia to explore copper and cobalt deposits, two Indian government sources said, as New Delhi steps up efforts to secure critical mineral supplies essential to its energy transition.
The Zambian government this year agreed to allocate 9,000 square km (3,475 square miles) to India for the exploration of cobalt – a key component in batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones – as well as for scouting copper, which is widely used in power generation, electronics, and construction.
The exploration project will last for three years and most of the analysis will be done in laboratories in India, one of the sources said.
Source – Reuters
Shares of Aya Gold & Silver were down Friday after the company reported lower silver production than analysts expected in the fourth quarter.
The stock retreated 15% to 10.85 Canadian dollars ($7.58).
Silver production in the fourth quarter totaled 491,310 ounces, compared with 450,046 ounces in the same period a earlier.
Source – Market Watch
“We are witnessing a resilient economy … against a backdrop of geopolitical concerns, and an expectation of some sort of chaos down the road,” said Oliver Pursche, senior vice president at Wealthspire Advisors in New York.
Gold reversed its multi-session rally, which was driven by a risk-off flight to safety that drove the precious metal to a record high.
Spot gold fell 0.3% to $2,856.40 an ounce. U.S. gold futures fell 0.39% to $2,860.50 an ounce.
Source – Reuters
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
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
Source – Money Metals