Platinum

The slide in the spot price of gold triggered by disappointment over the Fed's actions – or lack thereof – yesterday accelerated in Thursday trade with the precious metal giving up $50 or just over 3%.

After announcing an economic report today, shares in Prophecy Platinum traded hands at six times their usual volume.

"Natural resources companies with a pipeline of, say, five projects in five different countries are now likely to build just two or three of those. Thus, executives have the power to cherry pick which combination of country and project offers the best returns."

A vital revenue stream for platinum miners — chrome ore — may be choked off if ferrochrome producers are successful in lobbying for a protectionist export tariff of $100/ton in their desperate attempt to protect their own businesses from China’s burgeoning chrome refiners.

A hedging u-turn is in the making.

Aquarius Platinum, the world’s fourth-largest platinum producer by volume, has responded to a fall in prices for the precious metal by mothballing a mine jointly owned with Anglo Platinum, arguing that production had become uneconomic.

What a whippy week it was. Volatility spiked and then subsided into the end of the week which meant it was a great day-trading environment but then that petered off as ranges tightened for markets and stocks into the end of the week.

The first Canadian mid-market chief financial officer (CFO) survey published today by GE Capital, shows that local metals and mining companies are extremely positive about the current state of the industry, but less optimistic about the state of the world economy.

Bosco Ntaganda, a fugitive UN war crimes suspect who recently defected from the army and is believed to be behind Democratic Republic of Congo’s most recent rebellion, is apparently bankrolling the operation with war money he made while controlling the country’s lucrative mines, publishes Global Witness.