MINING.COM

Why commodities crashed

If you want to see market reporting done right, I can recommend the 2,000-word Reuters special report on Thursday’s commodities crash. It doesn’t just pick a random news event or gesture vaguely at “worries about economic growth” while saying what prices did; it looks at the mechanisms behind the market moves and what might have caused them. It’s worth underlining that Thursday’s percentage declines in commodities like silver and oil would count as a full-on disaster if they occurred in the stock market. Commodities markets are rowdier places than stock markets, however, and the only people who really got hurt are sophisticated investors who can take their medicine.

Seeking Alpha | May 10, 2011 | 9:38 pm

Adrian Day: Gold prices due for a correction

As Adrian Day, of Adrian Day Asset Management, plays the current gold market "for all it’s worth," he isn't happy about the political decisions fueling it. Read in this exclusive Gold Report interview how he would fix the federal deficit, what he looks for in gold stocks and why his gut tells him the gold price is headed for a fall.

The Gold Report | May 9, 2011 | 8:18 pm

Orange, Australia now the site of brand new training facilities for mining, trades, sustainable building

TAFE Western has opened three new facilities in Orange, NSW, Australia to provide students with state of the art training in trades and mining, set in a framework of green technology and green building practices.

TAFE Western institute director Kate Baxter said both the Green Skills Trade Education Centre and the mining simulator would provide world-class learning facilities right here in Orange. She said the Green Skills Trade Education Centre would train tradespeople in a range of areas including plumbing, construction, electrotechnology, manufacturing and engineering, and aimed to develop sustainable building practices.

Joanna Gaskell - Education Editor | May 6, 2011 | 1:40 pm

The institutional gold rush

I have worked on Wall Street my entire life, and one thing I've learned is that large institutional investors, like pension funds and endowments, rarely veer from the herd. They manage too much of other people's money to stick their necks out alone - if their investments go bad, at least they can point to everyone else who fared just as poorly

Peter Schiff - Euro Pacific Precious Metals | May 5, 2011 | 1:40 pm

Washington begins to examine REE supply chain

May 4, 2011 (Robin Bromby, Editor www.RareMetalBlog.com) - Just how quickly do things change in Washington? Well, slowly, it seems, when it comes to rare earths.

REE World Report | May 5, 2011 | 1:40 pm

Report calls for rethink of Australian training sector

A report handed to Australian Education and Training Minister Chris Evans warns that Australia will fail to capitalise on the mining boom unless it overhauls the national training system and improves workforce skill levels.

Under current arrangements, completion rates are appalling, training often poorly targeted, graduate skills under-used and skill shortages growing, the report says. Meanwhile, at least 1.5 million people are unemployed or under-employed and nearly half the population has poor language, literacy and numeracy skills.

Joanna Gaskell - Education Editor | May 5, 2011 | 12:24 pm

The S&P 500 may hold clues to the peak in gold & silver

The single biggest news event last week besides the Royal Wedding (who actually cares) was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's televised press conference. The Federal Reserve is attempting to appear more transparent after coming under pressure from the United States Congress because of their obscure and potentially nefarious operation.

J.W. Jones - www.optionstradingsignals.com | May 2, 2011 | 11:30 am

Is Gold a Bubble?

Gold had sold for $35 an ounce, then shot up to $675 during the last bubble, peaking in January 1980. (I’m using […]

Seeking Alpha | April 29, 2011 | 8:46 pm

China group in talks to buy Lundin: Globe and Mail

The months-long saga over the future of Lundin Mining took another interesting twist on Friday, when a consortium of Chinese companies jumped in with a potential bid, according to a story in The Globe and Mail. Lundin has been the target of two takeover bids, the first by Inmet Mining, which recently fell through, and the second by Equinox Minerals, which unveiled a $4.8 billion hostile takeover bid to counter the Inmet offer. That deal was derailed when China's Minmetals Resources tried to acquire Equinox, which has since been acquired by Barrick Gold, which presented a richer offer worth $7.3 billion.

Andrew Topf | April 29, 2011 | 7:49 pm

Think silver has gone parabolic? 1980 was 5 times faster!

Asset price bubbles have occurred since the beginning of financial markets and will continue to do so as long as there remains a marketplace for assets to be traded. A key property of a bubble is that is it near impossible to identify with certainty before it pops, but once it does pop the bubble is apparently obvious to everyone. In our opinion, only those who risk capital and profit betting against a bubble can claim to have correctly identified one.

Sam Kirtley | April 26, 2011 | 1:50 pm