Peru’s mining ministry on Friday said copper output in 2024 amounted to 2,736,150 metric tons, down 0.7% from 2023. The drop marked the copper giant’s first decline after four straight years of recovery following the pandemic.
Source – Mining.com
Investors are expecting a packed week of economic data starting with the Chicago Fed National Activity Index for January out on Monday at 8:30 a.m. ET. This will be followed by the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index at 10:30 a.m.
The most anticipated data for the week will be the personal consumption expenditure index, which will be delivered on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge heavily influences the Fed’s rate-cutting decisions.
Source – CNBC
In 1979, a couple using a metal detector in the Kalgoorlie Goldfields of Western Australia located a massive gold nugget. Known today as the “Golden Beauty,” the nugget weighs in at nearly 10 pounds.
It is currently on the auction block. According to Heritage Auctions, the opening bid was $400,000.
At the current spot price, the gold is worth around $481,800.
“Gold always has been enormously popular, in part because of its pure value and beauty, but also because it is exceedingly rare,” Heritage Auctions vice president of nature and science Craig Kissick said.
Source – Money Metals
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
Asian and European shares were mixed to weaker in trading overnight. U.S. stock indexes are set to open higher on corrective bounces following Friday’s big sell offs.
German stocks rose as investors cheered a win by German conservative leader Friedrich Merz in Sunday’s elections.
The Euro zone January consumer price index came in at up 2.5%, year-on-year, which was right in line with market expectations.
Source – KITCO News
India’s steel-to-power conglomerate JSW Group plans to set up a 500,000 metric ton capacity copper smelter in the eastern state of Odisha by 2028/29 with feedstock of copper concentrate from Peru and Chile, a source directly aware of the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
JSW plans to feed its planned electric vehicle and battery manufacturing facilities with the copper produced at the smelter, the source added. Some of the concentrate supply will come from Hindustan Copper, the source said.
Source – Reuters
Considering the price of gold throughout 2021, it averaged out to roughly $1,798/ounce, meaning the value of the dollar actually rose around 3 percent right at the time that the economy-sapping tax that is government spending continued under Biden, and allegedly caused “inflation.” To be clear, government spending is the worst tax of all exactly because it substitutes central planning of resources by the government for that of the private sector. Still, it logically doesn’t cause higher prices, or “inflation,” and it didn’t if gold is to be believed.
Source – Forbes
Silvercorp’s El Domo project in Ecuador is set to boost revenues by 50% when it begins operations and diversify operations reducing jurisdictional risk.
Source – Seeking Alpha / Mountain Valley Value Investments
Hope you had a LOVEly Valentines weekend!
