Diamond News Archives

With melting ice expanding access to the Arctic, investors from China to Canada are watching Greenland's election for signs of the political will to get a flagging mining programme on the island back on track.

Greenland is hoping rising commodity prices can help attract foreign investment and get its fragile economy up to speed to realise a long-term goal of independence from Denmark.

Hype about a possible mining boom in Greenland after it achieved self-rule from Denmark in 2009 faded in a morass of red tape and a commodity price slump around five years ago. It left the economy reliant on fishing and grants from Denmark.

But with the country's sole producing mine starting up last year – a ruby pink sapphire mine operated by Norway's LNS Group – and Canada's Hudson Resource's anorthosite project due to begin operations this year, locals are again hoping more investments will follow.

Improved access to and from the Arctic island as the ice melts, and a more favourable investment climate, would go some way to alleviate the barriers to business of perpetual winter darkness and temperatures reaching as low as minus 50 Celsius.

With that in mind, a central theme for the new government elected on Tuesday will be to decide whether it wants to shift focus away from Denmark and strengthen economic and diplomatic ties with other countries, including China.

Chinese interest in Greenland comes after Beijing laid out its ambitions to form a "Polar Silk Road" by developing shipping lanes opened up by global warming and encouraging enterprises to build infrastructure in the Arctic.

The main contenders to lead the next government are Prime Minister Kim Kielsen of the social-democratic Siumut party and Sara Olsvig of the left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party (IA)....

The Silver Market is setting up for one heck of a move higher as investors are waiting for the signal to start buying.  While the silver price has shot up due recently, it still isn’t clear if this is the beginning of a longer-term uptrend.  The reason for the quick spike in silver was likely due to a small short-covering rally by the Large Speculators trading on the Comex.

For the first time in a quite a while, the Large Speculators (Specs) were net short silver.  For example, the Large Specs were net long by more than 100,000 contracts last year when the silver price was $18.50.  However, the last COT Report showed that the Large Specs were net short silver by 17,000 contracts:

The Large Specs are shown in the Light Blue bars. Typically, the Large Specs are long, not short silver.  You can see the Large Specs going short three weeks ago as their light blue bars turned down.  On the other hand, the Commercials (in Red) are usually net short.  However, the Commercials had the lowest net short position in years.  So, to see the price of silver shoot by nearly $1.00 in a few days isn’t surprising when I have seen this setup for a few weeks.

However, it’s difficult to know if this is the start of a long uptrend in the silver price.  It’s coming, but I just don’t know if this is it yet.  We will know when the Silver price is making a big move when it finally gets above $20 as the broader markets crash.  Now, many silver investors might be a bit frustrated because silver sentiment and investment demand dropped to a low last year.

In 2017, demand for silver declined as...

When you seek out and consume a lot news about precious metals investing on a daily basis, it’s easy to forget that mainstream investors tend to completely ignore the space until there is a major move that puts gold or silver in the spotlight.

And then, lemmings that they are, they pile in one after the next, paying ever-increasing prices for commodities the savvy investor stocked up on while everyone else was busy with FANG stocks. Don’t wait for the run. Don’t wait for the rush. Maximum profits are made by getting in before the stampede.

Gold remains largely forgotten, off the radars of most investors. But that’s likely to change soon as this leading alternative investment is nearing a major bull breakout. Once gold climbs to decisive new bull-market highs, sentiment will turn and investors’ interest will surge. Their resulting buying will rapidly drive gold higher, attracting in more capital inflows. Gold is only a couple modest up days away from that key breakout.

Universally in all markets, traders’ psychology is completely dependent on price action and levels. When prices are high and rising, speculators and investors alike eagerly buy in. They love chasing winners, so buying begets buying.

With capital inflows following performance, investments that aren’t high and rallying naturally see waning popularity.

That’s the story of gold over the past couple years or so. Gold’s last new bull-market high came way back in early July 2016, when it hit $1365. That was 21.3 months ago, which may as well be an eternity in terms of sentiment. In most traders’ minds, gold has effectively been dead and buried ever since.

While contrarian investors always follow gold, most mainstream investors don’t. They only get interested when gold is powering up...

Zimbabwe’s parliament has ordered former leader Robert Mugabe to answer questions next month about whether the state was deprived of $15 billion in diamond revenue, a legislator said on Friday.

It will be Mugabe’s first public appearance since last November when the army deposed him in a de facto coup after nearly four decades in power and he was replaced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The 94-year-old gave his first television interview last month since he lost power and said Mnangagwa had betrayed him and assumed the presidency illegally.

Mugabe said in March 2016 the country was robbed of wealth by diamond companies including joint ventures between Chinese companies and the army, police and intelligence services whose operations were shielded from public scrutiny.

Specifically, he said Zimbabwe lost $15 billion in revenue from Marange gem fields, more than 400 km (250 miles) east of the capital. He expelled those firms last year and replaced them with a state-owned diamond company.

Themba Mliswa who heads parliament’s mining committee said the panel had interviewed former Marange mining executives as well as the police, army and intelligence services and now wanted to talk to Mugabe.

“The committee resolved that the former president should appear on 9 May so that he can explain the disappearance of the $15 billion,” Mliswa said.

“This is not political persecution. After gathering all evidence, it was the committee’s view that we call the former Head of State and government.”

The state diamond company was set to auction 1.56 million carats of diamonds from Marange in March and April, the first time since March 2017 it has held such sales.

In 2006, over 20,000 illegal diggers descended on the Marange fields, prompting the government to deploy the army to...