Monday, April 11, 2005
Copper Reaches Record in London; China Stockpiles May Dwindle
Every few weeks we get one of these stories; I've stopped reporting them for the most part because they're boring, but you need to know it's still happening ...
Bloomberg.com: Canada
Copper futures reached a record on the London Metal Exchange on speculation demand will outstrip supply in China, the world's largest consumer.
Copper for delivery in three months climbed to $3,316 a metric ton, the highest since the contract began trading in its current form in 1986 and $8 more than the March 31 peak. The metal was up $23, or 0.7 percent, to $3,310 at 11:26 a.m. London time.
``It reflects continued tight supply situation in Asia,'' John Meyer, an analyst at Numis Corp., said in a telephone interview. ``In Europe, consumers have also been forced to return to the market after delaying purchasing.''
If you head over to the London Metals Exchange, a few minutes playing with their interactive graph maker produces this graph:
The dates across the bottom are this day (April 11th) in 2001 to today.
The numbers up the left side are US$/tonne.
Pretty scarey if you do a lot of copper or copper alloys (brass, BeCu, etc), especially if any significant amount of it is fixed price contracts.
Bloomberg.com: Canada
Copper futures reached a record on the London Metal Exchange on speculation demand will outstrip supply in China, the world's largest consumer.
Copper for delivery in three months climbed to $3,316 a metric ton, the highest since the contract began trading in its current form in 1986 and $8 more than the March 31 peak. The metal was up $23, or 0.7 percent, to $3,310 at 11:26 a.m. London time.
``It reflects continued tight supply situation in Asia,'' John Meyer, an analyst at Numis Corp., said in a telephone interview. ``In Europe, consumers have also been forced to return to the market after delaying purchasing.''
If you head over to the London Metals Exchange, a few minutes playing with their interactive graph maker produces this graph:
The dates across the bottom are this day (April 11th) in 2001 to today.
The numbers up the left side are US$/tonne.
Pretty scarey if you do a lot of copper or copper alloys (brass, BeCu, etc), especially if any significant amount of it is fixed price contracts.
Labels: Copper
