metals and mining

It's not fun to be a gold-and-silver investor.   Gold settled Friday at $1,244.10 an ounce, 50 cents higher on the day but down 3.4 percent for the week. It was gold's worst weekly loss in 10 weeks. For the month, gold is off six percent and down 25.8 percent for the year. Silver was off 7.2...

An important bit of business news on Thursday. In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Dr. Janet Yellen, nominated to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, said she favors continuing Quantitative Easing III. That program has the Federal Reserve acquiring $85 billion monthly...

It was recently announced that the chairman and founder of Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX), Peter Munk, would be stepping down. For the shareholders, that move is coming way, way too late. For 2013, Barrick Gold, the world's second largest gold, is off by almost 50 percent for 2013. That is certainly...

Considering it's a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) is a very volatile stock. With a beta of 1.83, the price moves up and down almost twice as much as the stock market as a whole. For patient, long term investors, that price action provides opportunities to...

While the rescue of underground copper miners at the San Jose facility in Chile captured the world's attention in 2010, but the industry is now working to keep those miners happy. BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP), according to an article in Bloomberg Businessweek, is now using high salaries and generous...