Gold to silver price ratio has seen an erosion in value with silver showing some strength following improved demand on lower price and global lockdowns resulting in physical stock scarcity of the metal. The ratio had tested a level of 124 in March this year following weakening silver demand on industrial and economic slump. The ratio was 79.2 in September last year. The level of 124, seen in March, was a historic high and was never seen indicating that it was not sustainable and silver is not...

After a month of controversial settlement of crude oil contract at a negative price or price quoted in minus, the MCX has issued a circular saying that it has now enabled its software-system to quote and trade at negative (minus) price or price below rupee one. On April 20, MCX settled crude oil futures Rs 2,884 minus even as their software was not permitting negative price trade. This was because the contract term was to settle it at Nymex crude oil close on the MCX settlement day and Nymex...

After a month of controversial settlement of crude oil contract at a negative price or price quoted in minus, the MCX has enabled its software-system to quote and trade at negative (minus) price or price below rupee one and that is applicable for all commodities. However, the controversy that started with the first settlement announced on April 21, is refusing to die down. While it could take some time for actual trading taking place in negative price whenever referenced global contract trade...

The Reserve Bank of India sold sovereign gold bonds worth Rs 1,168 crore in an issue that opened for about seven days in the second week of this month, making it biggest ever sale of such bonds by amount since they were launched in November 2015. Demand for the yellow metal is still mostly in the form of securitised assets such as gold ETFs and bonds. The government has sold SGBs worth Rs 1990 crore while in April itself net investments in gold ETF stood at Rs.731 crore. In whole of 2019-20,...

Operational flexibility to shift from domestic to the export market, along with higher petrochemical production helped Reliance Industries (RIL) operate at 90-100 per cent in April and May even during the lockdown. The large public sector refiners operated at a combined 59 per cent average capacity in April. RIL produced more chemicals than fuel as it saw good export demand for petrochemicals, especially polymers. The company’s oil-to-chemical business, which is being carved out as a separate...