Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value. Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements. They are usually ductile and have a high lustre. Historically, precious metals were important as currency but are now regarded mainly as investment and industrial commodities. Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium each have an ISO 4217 currency code.
The London Metal Exchange (LME) is a futures & forwards exchange with the world's largest market in standarised forward contracts, futures contracts and options on base metals. The exchange also offers contracts on ferrous metals and precious metals. As the LME offers contracts with daily expiry dates of up to three months from trade date, weekly contracts to six months, and monthly contracts up to 123 months, it also allows for cash trading. It offers hedging, worldwide reference pricing, and the option of physical delivery to settle contracts.
Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes from the Anglo-Norman term for a melting-house where metal was refined, and earlier from French bouillon, "boiling". Although precious metal bullion is no longer used to make coins for general circulation, it continues to be held as an investment with a reputation for stability in periods of economic uncertainty. To assess the purity of gold bullion, the centuries-old technique of fire assay is still employed, together with modern spectroscopic instrumentation, to accurately determine its quality.
Of all the precious metals, gold is the most popular as an investment. Investors generally buy gold as a way of diversifying risk, especially through the use of futures contracts and derivatives. The gold market is subject to speculation and volatility as are other markets. Compared to other precious metals used for investment, gold has been the most effective safe haven across a number of countries.
Electronic Broking Services (EBS) is a wholesale electronic trading platform used to trade on the foreign exchange market (FX) with market-making banks. It was originally created as a partnership by large banks and then became part of CME Group.
Nariman Behravesh is Chief Economist at the consulting firm IHS Markit and author of Spin-Free Economics: A No-Nonsense, Nonpartisan Guide to Today's Global Economic Debates (McGraw-Hill). Directing the entire economic forecasting process at IHS Markit, he is responsible for developing the economic outlook and risk analysis for the United States, Europe, Japan, China and other emerging markets. He oversees the work of over 400 professionals, located in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa who cover economic, financial and political developments in over 200 countries. Behravesh is quoted extensively in the media on such topics as the outlook for the US and global economies, exchange rates, the budget deficit, the trade deficit, globalization, country risk and sovereign debt crises. Dr. Behravesh is a featured speaker at many of the top global conferences each year, including IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates CERA Week and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Vladimir Kvint is a Russian economist and strategist, and President of the International Academy of Emerging Markets. In parallel, since 2007, he has been the Chair of the Department of Economic and Financial Strategy at the Moscow School of Economics of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. Kvint also is a Head of the Center for Strategic Studies at Institute of Complex Systems Mathematical Research of this University.
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a Canadian-American multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre.
GFMS are research and consultancy company for the precious metal markets. Since 2011 they have been part of Thomson Reuters. As well as other commodities, they research gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper trading.
The London Bullion Market Association, established in 1987, is the international trade association representing the global Over The Counter (OTC) bullion market, and defines itself as "the global authority on precious metals". It has a membership of approximately 150 firms globally, including traders, refiners, producers, miners, fabricators, as well as those providing storage and secure carrier services.
The 2000s commodities boom or the commodities super cycle was the rise of many physical commodity prices during the early 21st century (2000–2014), following the Great Commodities Depression of the 1980s and 1990s. The boom was largely due to the rising demand from emerging markets such as the BRIC countries, particularly China during the period from 1992 to 2013, as well as the result of concerns over long-term supply availability. There was a sharp down-turn in prices during 2008 and early 2009 as a result of the credit crunch and sovereign debt crisis, but prices began to rise as demand recovered from late 2009 to mid-2010.
Reuters (UK: /ˈrɔɪtəz/, is an international news organisation owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange was an electronic commodities exchange established in Hong Kong for the trading of commodity futures, options and other financial derivatives. The exchange was originally pitched as a platform to trade oil futures. In fact, it ended up trading mainly silver and gold futures.
MKS (Switzerland) SA is a trader of precious metals. Based in Geneva, the group employs approximately 600 workers and turns over an estimated US$70 million. MKS is an associate of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), and its subsidiary PAMP has been on the LBMA’s Gold List, widely recognised in the financial services industry as the indicator of quality, since 1987.
Clarivate Citation Laureates formerly Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates is a list of candidates considered likely to win the Nobel Prize in their respective field. The candidates are so named based on the citation impact of their published research. The list of awardees is announced annually prior to the Nobel Prize ceremonies of that year. In October 2016, Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Science Business was acquired by Onex and Baring Asia and the newly independent company was named as Clarivate.
The London bullion market is a wholesale over-the-counter market for the trading of gold and silver. Trading is conducted amongst members of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), loosely overseen by the Bank of England. Most of the members are major international banks or bullion dealers and refiners.
Pallion designs, manufactures, and distributes precious metal products and related services. It is the largest precious metal services group in Australasia. Pallion is the result of the merger of the ABC Bullion and Palloys Group of companies founded in 1972 and 1951 respectively. The group maintains its headquarters in Sydney NSW Australia and is a wholly privately owned group of companies with manufacturing facilities and offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth in Australia, Hong Kong (SAR) and mainland China.
PAMP SA is an independently operated precious metals refining and fabricating company and member of the MKS Group. It was established in 1977 in Ticino, Switzerland
Baird & Co. is the largest gold refiner and the only full-service bullion merchant in the United Kingdom. Founded by Tony Baird in 1967; Baird & Co. initially dealt in numismatic coins expanding into bullion bars and jewellery as time progressed. The company is headquartered in Hatton Garden, London, operating out of a 30,000 sq foot high-security refinery in Beckton and an international branch in Singapore.
Clarivate is a public analytics company that operates a collection of subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business / market intelligence, and competitive profiling for pharmacy and biotech, patents, and regulatory compliance; trademark protection, and domain and brand protection. In the academy and the scientific community, Clarivate is known for being the company which calculates the impact factor, using data from its Web of Science product family, that also includes services/applications such as Publons, EndNote, EndNote Click, and ScholarOne. Its other product families are Cortellis, DRG, CPA Global, Derwent, MarkMonitor, CompuMark, and Darts-ip, and also the various ProQuest products and services.
