Back on the menu: Chinese steel mills regain taste for high-grade iron ore

It has been a tough month for both silver prices and silver stocks. The Global X Silver Miners ETF (SIL) has fallen nearly 16 percent in the last month.

Goldman Sachs came out with a report showing Chinese copper usage in April came in at the second highest run rate on record.

Copper demand in China, the world's main consumer of the red metal, is expected to rebound in the second half of 2012, despite the uncertain outlook for Europe, the head of Xstrata PLC's copper division said.

In what it seems a move towards exiting the aluminum wire business, diversified miner Rio Tinto (LON & NYSE:RIO) announced it is selling its U.S.-based wire and cable business Alcan Cable to American company General Cable (NYSE: BGC) for $185 million.

Iron ore prices fell on Monday to six-month lows of $130/tonne as Chinese steelmakers demand cargo deferrals or simply default on shipments.

Gold demand in China may surge as much as 30 percent this year as rising incomes boost consumption, helping the country topple as the world's largest bullion market on an annual basis, according to the World Gold Council.

Chinese authorities added 10,680 tonnes to the country's export allowance this week but it is something of a meaningless exercise because during the first quarter China only exported 26.3% of the initial quota.

Laurence Graff, the undisputed king of uber-expensive diamonds, will earn a tidy $290 million windfall when he restructures his Mayfair-based company and will vastly boost his paper wealth when Graff Diamonds lists in Hong Kong for as much as $4 billion.

China won’t meet its carbon and energy intensity targets unless dramatic changes to its electricity grid are applied, says a study by U.S.-based Energy Transition Research Institute.