Base Metals Stage Comeback - Aluminum Near All Time High
Jul 8th, 2008 | By Doug Casey | Category: Gold MarketThe base metals were almost all in the black on Monday. Copper was off during the pre-dawn hours but rallied during the New York session to finish in the middle of the day’s trading range at $3.8898/lb., down a half-cent.
Nickel finally experienced a positive day, climbing through most of the session and only coming a bit off its intraday high to close at $9.4083/lb., up more than 17 cents. Zinc pushed higher from the pre-dawn hours straight through, ending at $0.815/lb., up nearly 2 1/3 cents. Aluminum was very strong, rising to $1.4755/lb., up almost 7¼ cents, while lead showed a spark of life after its recent woes, adding 2 cents to $0.7223/lb.
Copper recouped most of its early losses, the most in five weeks, that came after Sunday’s announcement that Peruvian miners had called off a week-long national strike, to allow talks with government officials over profit-sharing and pensions to proceed.
China also played in, as that country is projected to have shipped in 4% less refined copper in June than in May, as high world prices, weak demand and strong domestic production have sliced into the need for imported metal.
However, investment bank Citi likes what it sees going forward. Analysts there have raised copper price forecasts for the next two years, in light of a supply shortfall that looms as larger than expected. Citi predicts that copper will average $5/lb. in 2009, up sharply from an earlier forecast of $3.50/lb., and $5.50/lb in 2010 versus $3 in its previous forecast.
And on the supply side, inventories monitored by the LME fell by 500 metric tons, to 122,075 tons, yesterday.
Aluminum jumped to a 2-year high that was just off its alltime record, as worry escalated over power problems in China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of the metal.
Coal shortages have led to record power shortfalls in northern China’s Shanxi province and the coal-rich region had to ration supplies and even import electricity from Beijing to reduce deficits.
Source: Base Metals Stage Comeback, Aluminum Near All Time High
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