Metals

The China Containerized Freight Index has bee-lined upward in 2010. The index tracks shipping prices for goods sailing from China to 11 different regions around the world.

Between January 15 and February 26, the index rose 17%. During the same period, the Baltic Dry Index (which tracks average shipping prices globally) fell 18%.

China is the key to the metals markets today. And there are some important signals about this market registering in the last few weeks.

Generating about 16% of annual world gold production, South Africa is the world's largest gold producer.

For last week’s Energy and Capital, I reviewed China’s buying spree of natural resources, and argued that we may need them for the energy revolution more desperately than anyone now imagines.

If we want an example of good long-term resource planning, we might want to look to China.

Copper prices have soared 96 percent this year, partly because of surging imports by China, the world's biggest metal user. China's imports of copper and the metal's products in July dropped for the first time in six months, declining from a record, after stockpiles increased in the world's largest consumer.

Record credit-card defaults in the United States are set to expose severely under-capitalized U.S. banks. Along with soaring default rates in every category of U.S. debt, this will lead to the banker-beggars looking for more blank-cheques from their errand-boy, Tim-the-tax-cheat Geithner – later this year.

For nearly 5,000 years, the price ratio between gold and silver has averaged approximately 15:1. This number is very close to the 17:1 ratio which represents the natural occurrence of the two elements in the Earth's crust. It is interesting to note, however, that through most of history the price ratio has favored silver.

On February 1, 2008, the day that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Mark Carney as the new Governor of the Bank of Canada, Canada's currency was soaring at a multi-decade high – well above par versus the U.S.

In Part I of this series, I provided a brief exposition on the birth of silver mining, and explained how and why silver came to be universally considered a “precious metal” (and “money”) by humanity.In Part II, I will provide an outline of the development of silver mining, and the huge growth of global, silver stockpiles which accompanied such production-growth – and which ended in the l

Given the rate in which our species is over-populating this planet, in some of my more pessimistic moments, I have envisioned a world where we are all waist-deep in our own “waste”. How ironic would it be if our species' own waste products turned out to be our energy-salvation in the future?A Reuters story demonstrates that such a future is at least plausible.

There was yet another news item out on June 8th concerning still more investing by China in the infrastructure of another commodity-producing nation. While there was nothing especially noteworthy about this one, particular investment, it does not only reinforce an obvious trend – but also counters yet another myth about China's investment policies.The media in the “old” economies of U.S.

U.S. mortgage applications fell to their lowest level since February, in numbers released today. With interest rates guaranteed to go higher (thanks to the collapse in U.S.

Not all the efforts of the U.S. propaganda-machine are directed at generating false-hope in the U.S. economy and warping economic statistics beyond recognition. A large component of this campaign is to undermine confidence in other economies – in order to try to make investing in U.S. assets appear to be the least-worst alternative.Of course, there is no need for the U.S.

The comedy duo of Bernanke & Geithner are still promising an “economic recovery” for the U.S. in the second half of this year, and their faithful, media talking-heads continue to parrot this nonsense.Don't get me wrong here. I'm not suggesting that we couldn't see a positive, GDP reading for the U.S. in the 3rd quarter.