Daily FNArena News - Commodities

European central banks’ gold pact; Citi bullish on nickel; large diversified miners to outperform; bear and bull cases for iron ore; and iron ore links to the Australian dollar.

A pause in the relentless slide in the spot uranium price has proven merely a one week affair, as further excess US government inventories are set to be offloaded onto the market.

Nickel pricing strength is growing, bulks are feeling the supply glut and gold is holding a range.

Thermal coal will remain under pressure; merger and acquisition deals and speculation heat up Australia’s resources sector; Mt Gibson Iron evaluated.

Time to become overweight in miners? Do commodity prices matter more than volume to Australia’s economy? Gold remains subdued while nickel adjusts to Indonesian bans.

After sixteen weeks of consecutive weekly falls, the price of spot uranium was unchanged last week amidst low activity.

Is the sun setting on the iron ore boom? Bell Potter ponders what a three-way merger might mean in the base metals sector. DJ Carmichael asks why some gold stocks are not performing.

Aluminium is heading for deficit in JP Morgan’s view. Consolidation is Bell Potter’s theme for the Oz nickel sector, while Macquarie sees some value in mid cap energy stocks.

Iron ore prices have fallen 10% recently and Chinese inventory financing and a resumption of Indian exports has been blamed, but are these the real reasons?

Heightened tensions over Russia’s involvement in Ukraine underpins the outlook for crude, nickel and gold. Uranium remains in the doldrums while coal is beset by supply.