Daily FNArena News - Commodities

Downward price pressure continues for oil; Cooper Basin expectations reduced; M&A appetite prevails among miners; macro economic trends preoccupy LME conference participants.

Local government has voted to approve the restart of the first two Japanese reactors to have passed strict new safety standards.

Market analysts at FXCM note last night’s 3% plunge in the sliver price, highlighting few positive catalysts for silver and gold.

The spot uranium price increased last week as utilities returned to join speculative buyers on the demand side.

New era of lower priced iron ore; modest improvement in China’s steel trade; challenges with China’s thermal coal import tariffs; and contemplating a nickel surplus.

Profit Confidential reports a Swiss referendum at the end of this month may have serious implications for the direction of the gold price.

Analyst expectations for prices over the next year across the base metals complex rest largely on fundamentals.

It is not those Japanese citizens living next to reactors that are holding up restart proceedings, but those outside the beneficial zone.

As uranium prices continue to find long-lost support, the focus swings back to just when Japan might restart the idled reactors that sent prices crashing in the first place.

Already suffering from slowing Chinese demand and a weakening in producer currencies, coal producers now face a barrage of Chinese import tariffs.