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Copper's Early Fall Stability: A Sorely Needed Steady Week In The Metals Market​

September 13, 2023

17:54

Check Scrap Prices: https://iScrapApp.com/ - We’ve seen copper prices stay steady weekly. This is a welcome site to see while the markets continue to figure out where they will go. Overall, we’ve seen pricing stay steady, which has also shown in the pricing we've seen in scrap yards.

Read more: https://iscrapapp.com/blog/weekly-scr...
 
General Fuel News

 
 

The Commodities Feed: Further gas supply disruptions​

Oil prices remain well supported on expectations of a tighter market. Meanwhile, gas prices have rallied on the back of further supply risks



WASDE update: Tighter wheat and looser corn market​

The USDA’s latest monthly WASDE report was constructive for wheat as adverse weather in Australia, Canada and the EU is expected to tighten global supply. However, the release was more bearish for corn on the back of revisions higher to US acreage and ending stocks

 

 

UAW strike: Workers at 3 plants in 3 states launch historic action against Detroit Three​


The United Auto Workers launched a historic strike late Thursday by targeting all three Detroit automakers at once after contract negotiations failed to land a new deal.

UAW members at three assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio and Missouri went on strike after their labor contracts expired at 11:59 p.m. The UAW confirmed that about 13,000 members across the three plants are walking the picket lines.

As the deadline for a new contract passed, cheering could be heard from inside the gates at Stellantis' Toledo Assembly Complex as cars and trucks streamed out and honking horns provided the soundtrack. At Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Assembly in Wayne, union strikers cheered: "We love you, Shawn, we love you," when UAW President Shawn Fain arrived after midnight to join the picket line. He stayed until after 1 a.m. and told members, "I work for you."

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Peter Schiff, Head of SchiffGold.com, back-engineer's the imminent crisis facing the global economy, offering the ideal panacea of PMs and specific mining shares.

Peter Schiff's website; http://schiffgold.com/

- Tesla (TSLA) gapped higher this week on key AI news.
- PMs mining shares represent a solid investment, up to 10x is possible in the coming years.
- Investors will recognize the risk of inflation, slowly and one-by-one.
- Evidence of early runaway inflation: product prices are increasing as portion sizes decline.
- The domestic economic patient will eventually succumb to Fiscal profligacy.
- Our guest suggests that Fed inflation fighting, rate-hikes will fail to contain inflation.
- Hyperinflation remains one possible outcome.
 

Platinum's Price Could Explode Soon! But Heed This Warning​

Sep 17, 2023
15:52
 

Global Copper Miners’ Leverage Headroom Supports Growth Potential​


Fitch Ratings-London-13 September 2023: Many global copper miners have conservative financial profiles with sufficient headroom to support growth opportunities offered by the energy transition, despite new capacity becoming more expensive and complex due to tighter environmental regulations and riskier operating environments, Fitch Ratings says.

The roll-out of electric vehicles, renewables and related electricity grid infrastructure is driving increasing demand for copper. Without this roll-out demand would increase only marginally. CRU projects copper demand to increase by 39% to 42.5 million tonnes by 2050, while the UN Forecast Policy Scenario assumes demand to double over this time.

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Fitch Ratings Revises Global Metals and Mining Price Assumptions​

Fitch Ratings-London-14 March 2023: Fitch Ratings has revised its global metals and mining price assumptions, increasing short- and medium-term prices for copper, iron ore, coking coal, gold and nickel. We have also increased our 2023 assumption for zinc and the 2025 assumption for aluminium, and cut our 2023 price assumption for Australian thermal coal. We have kept all other price assumptions unchanged.

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Nothing to see, can listen in one window and play around the forum in a different window.

Media briefing on the BIS Quarterly Review, September 2023​

Sep 18, 2023

39:35

Claudio Borio and Hyun Song Shin summarize the September 2023 Quarterly Review and answer journalists’ questions about financial market developments and the economic outlook. Read more: https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt2...

Read it (pdf) https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt2309.pdf
 

America's largest water highway is in trouble, ominous for Midwest grain farmers​

Sixty percent of America's grain flows down the Mississippi River. Last fall, traffic ground to a halt due to low water, causing concern for Minnesota farmers during harvest.

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER - Jim Kennedy watches the river like a hawk.

From his view 33 feet up in the pilot house, Kennedy stares out wide windows at blackened driftwood, eddies, even sometimes rambunctious yachters steaming up the wide, blue waters of the Mississippi River near St. Paul.

"They're about the worst kind," Kennedy said, on the Tuesday after Labor Day. "Drunk yachters. But they can't be helped."

Another problem that can't be helped? Mother Nature's curveballs, like this year's devastating drought in America's heartland. And another trying year for U.S. agricultural exports, due to the high cost of diesel and lower commodity prices.

In a typical year, 60% of the nation's grain flows downstream to the Gulf of Mexico, loaded onto barges parked at terminals along the Mississippi River. The barges are often tucked below interstate overpasses or along remote stretches of inland waterways, noticed only by boater or beaver.

Read the rest:

 

Silk Road vs Spice Route: IMEC and its Implications​

PM Modi’s opening remarks at the G20 Meeting made references to overcoming the crisis of mutual trust among nations and the turbulent state of the global economy. The culmination of the G20 Summit 2023 in Delhi has resulted in some crucial developments in the global arena. India’s PM Narendra Modi announced the launch of a transnational and plurilateral mega connectivity project, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, France, Germany, Italy, the EU and the US have agreed upon a historic decision to create a hybrid connectivity project involving both maritime and rail routes. However, the idea behind IMEC is rooted in the I2U2, a Quadrilateral forum comprising India, Israel, UAE and the US.

Stretching between India and Europe via the Middle East, IMEC has certainly foregrounded it as a counter to China’s flagship project BRI. Therefore, IMEC becomes a significant geopolitical move by teaming up with some of the G20 nations to avoid reliance on Chinese projects for economics, infrastructure and connectivity purposes. Soon after the announcement nations like Türkiye raised concerns about its viability if excluded, concerns are obvious as it would deprive the role of Türkiye in such a crucial project for infrastructure development.

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The rise of surge pricing: ‘It will eventually be everywhere’
Powered by algorithms and AI, a growing number of consumer industries are adjusting prices in response to supply and demand.

As surge pricing spreads from concert tickets for stars like Harry Styles to even pints of beer, debates have increased on the ethics of the strategy.

For drinkers at the Coach House in central London on a busy work night this week, there was an uncomfortable piece of news to digest: the price of Britain’s favourite alcoholic beverage had just gone up — again.

Stonegate, Britain’s biggest pub company which runs the Coach House, has announced it will charge pubgoers 20p extra for a pint of beer on busy evenings and weekends. It is part of what it called a new “dynamic pricing” policy in some of its venues.

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Tight soybean market to get tighter | Weekly Commodity Market Update for 9/19/23​

11:09
 
This analytical piece provides an in-depth examination of current trends in blank sailings across major shipping routes, encompassing the Transpacific, Transatlantic, and Asia-North Europe & Mediterranean trades.

Shipping firms cancel or exclude planned journeys for various reasons, including seasonal demand shifts, trade imbalances, port congestion, labor disputes, adverse weather, or unforeseen events like the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021-2022, carriers added extra voyages to meet rising demand, but supply chain issues caused ships to get stuck in port queues, resulting in numerous cancellations despite increased capacity. Nevertheless, blank sailings have been crucial in preventing further drops in spot rates and keeping freight rates above carriers' break-even point. Although they are more organized than last year's sporadic cancellations, blank sailings are still used to stabilize market rates and exert upward pressure on specific trade routes, fueled by surging market demand and carrier actions.

 

Canada’s Mega Pipeline Promises to Redraw Global Oil Flows​

By Lucia Kassai and Robert Tuttle (Bloomberg) —

Canada, home to the world’s third-largest crude deposits, is poised to reshuffle global oil flows next year.

The nearly completed expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline promises to vault Canada into a new role in global markets by transporting an additional 600,000 barrels a day — on par with the daily output of Azerbaijan — from the country’s vast oil sands to a port on the Pacific Coast.

For Canada’s producers, the government-owned project offers a chance to break their almost total dependence on exports to the US and win higher prices for their crude. For global markets, the Trans Mountain expansion represents a new source of the heavy, sludgy oil that advanced refineries in India and China crave for producing transportation fuels and asphalt.

The project — which essentially twins an existing 1950s-era pipeline — had been expected to start operating the first quarter of next year, but technical challenges in tunneling along a 1.3-kilometer (0.8-mile) stretch have forced the company to seek changes that could delay the startup. A postponement would be an unwelcome development for a project that already has been delayed for years — and seen its costs balloon — because of opposition from environmentalists and indigenous groups.

Here’s a look at the mega pipeline as the in-service date approaches, whenever that may be.

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The former CFO of Russian LNG export giant Novatek has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for failing to tell the IRS about his ownership of large-scale offshore assets.

Mark Anthony Gyetvay of Naples, Florida started his career as an accountant at Hess and PWC, and in 2003 he was hired to become the CFO of Russian natural gas company Novatek. In 2005 - the year he helped take Novatek public - he opened two new Swiss bank accounts to hold large sums; at one point, the balances totaled more than $90 million, according to prosecutors. With the help of a Swiss wealth management firm, Gyetvay allegedly took steps to conceal his ownership of the accounts, transferring the ownership to his Russian wife and changing the listed address on the account to her Moscow home.

 

The Truth About Ozempic & Wegovy: Are Obesity Stocks Set to Rebound?​

Sep 22, 2023

21:52

Ozempic and Wegovy are being touted as the cure for obesity and the related problems like diabetes, sleep apnea, and fatty liver (NASH). So while Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly stocks jump with the promise that GLP-1s will eliminate obesity, the stocks that treated obesity related health conditions have taken a dive.
Is Ozempic and Wegovy really the cure for obesity, or will the side effects cause it to fail like other obesity drugs in the past like Redux?
I look at some of these obesity related stocks from a Barron's article and see if they are finished falling and ripe for a possible rebound if the hype around Wegovy fades.
These stocks are: DexCom (DXCM), Insulet (PODD), Tandem Diabetes Care (TNDM), ResMed (RMD), Inspire Medical Systems (INSP), Madrigal Pharmaceuticals (MDGL), Akero Therapeutics (AKRO), and 89bio (ETNB).
 

Mississippi River water levels plummet for second year: See the impact it's had so far​

The 2,340-mile-long Mississippi River is so low from hot, dry weather just a few months after severe floods helped replenish it from critically low water levels last year.

A drought has heightened worries about a second year of costly shipping delays, which amassed to an estimated $20 billion in losses last year, according to AccuWeather. About 40 days of low water in parts of the Mississippi — which runs through or touches the borders of 10 states — grounded barges, stalled traffic, blocked river ports at the height of harvest season and revealed shipwrecks.

More:

 
WSJ

UAW Strikes at More GM and Stellantis Sites, But Spares Ford​

The United Auto Workers union on Friday staged more strikes at General Motors and Chrysler-parent Stellantis, but spared Ford Motor from additional walkouts based on progress it has made in contract talks.

UAW President Shawn Fain told members during a livestream address Friday morning that workers would walk out at 38 parts-distribution centers across 20 states. He said the union for now isn’t calling further walkouts at Ford factories because the company has sweetened its offer in recent days.

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South America’s Richest Family Doubles Fortune on Shipping Bet Analysts Hated​

The Luksic family, South America’s wealthiest with a combined fortune of about $25 billion, is reaping the benefits of a bet on global shipping and port logistics more than a decade after it first entered the industry.

An initial 2011 investment by its holding company Quinenco SA in Chilean shipping firm Compania Sud Americana de Vapores SA, or CSAV, was met with skepticism from analysts and investors after it initially posted steep losses. The family stepped in to put up more than half of a $1.2 billion capital raise in 2012, and executives had to negotiate waivers with banks and bondholders to spin off its tugboat fleet.

Quinenco progressively increased its stake in CSAV, which struck a deal in 2014 to merge its operations with Hamburg-based Hapag-Lloyd. CSAV now owns 30% of the world’s fifth-largest shipper, and the pandemic-fueled bonanza in the industry caused by clogged supply chains and surging freight rates has paid out handsomely.

 

Beef cow slaughter slows | Weekly Livestock Market Update for 9/22/23​

15:05
 
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