Gold

Indian imports may have tanked over 80% in March and could drop 40% in the second quarter after gold traders and jewelers went on a three week strike over taxes.

June gold contracts ended the holiday shortened week at $1,632 an ounce, but the end of Indian strike and disappointing news out on Friday – a day the markets were closed and could not react – about job growth in the US should provide stimulus for renewed interest in the yellow metal.

The price of gold averaged $1,571 an ounce in 2011 meaning the South East Asian country missed out on $1,7 billion in potential revenue.

Reality show producers, who have made shows about ice road trucking and underground coal mining in Virginia and underwater gold miners that work the waters off Nome, Alaska are now turning their attention to one of mining’s last frontiers.

"We store significant amounts of commodities, for instance silver, on behalf of customers. We operate vaults in New York City, in Singapore and in London. Often when customers have that metal stored in our facilities they hedge it on a forward basis through JPMorgan, which in turn hedges in the commodities market," said Blythe Masters.

Felix Salmon, uber-blogger and columnist at Reuters, takes on the Economist's Matthew Bishop, author of In Gold We Trust?, on gold's value versus currencies, bonds and stocks.

"Resources groups and the bankers who promote them merit close scrutiny since minerals have been linked in the past with financial scandals and market manipulation, from the nickel bubble that captivated the City in the 1960s and ended in the Poseidon crash, to the Hunt brothers’ cornering of the silver market in 1980."

Zimbabwe's Black Empowerment Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, announced today it has taken majority ownership of foreign-owned mining firms, which had not already given a controlling stake to black Zimbabweans.

A recent study published by Canberra-based think tank The Australia Institute calls for a slowdown in mining investment.