The first thing I do when I sit down at my desk in the morning is check the price of gold. The second thing I do is check the price of oil.  Sure, the price for gold and oil changes all the time. Prices go up and down, for good and bad reasons. Heck, sometimes prices fluctuate and the reasoning defies logic.

Base metals were (mostly) slightly higher on Thursday. Copper gained 6.35 cents to close at $2.2069/lb. Nickel fell by nearly 2 cents to finish at $6.7139/lb. Zinc was little changed, ending at $0.6780/lb. Aluminum rose by nearly a cent, closing at $0.7014/lb., while lead moved to $0.7319/lb., up more than half a cent from the previous session.

While the masses were piling into low- to no-yield bonds during the market collapse in the fall of 2008, the International Speculator went bargain shopping in a sector that gives investors leverage to a rising gold price: the junior mining sector.

The base metals were mixed again on Wednesday. Copper sagged through the pre-dawn hours, but recaptured the lost ground during the New York session, finishing at $3.6395/lb., up a penny and a half.

Investors are lining up to grab their share – you can be one of them if you act fast enough.

Gold may be even more precious than we think. During the last several years, mining companies around the globe have discovered almost no new large-scale gold deposits.

What to do with your refiner shares.

With aging power plants and failing infrastructure, South Africa needs an injection of investment cash into its power sector. And while its economy technically maintains a budget surplus, it’s constantly battling things like unemployment and poverty.

Despite what you read from the financial newsletter industry, there aren’t many secrets left in the mining sector.

There has been little said about BHP Billiton Ltd.’s (BHP) attempted takeover of Rio Tinto PLC (RTP) in recent months, but the proposal is far from dead.