The base metals were mixed on Tuesday. Copper was up, bottoming at $2.55 in the pre-dawn hours, then moving sharply higher to mid-morning, before falling off again to finish at $2.5976/lb., up 5 cents. Nickel started the day much lower, then traded sideways through a tight range of about 10 cents, closing at $6.4168/lb., down 47¼ cents. Zinc dropped off, ending at $0.6898/lb., down better than 3 cents.

With all the deal brokering the Fed is managing right now, they seem more like a real estate agent than a quasi-government entity. The Fed is supposed to help manage the economy, but they keep applying band-aids to the problem. Encouraging one troubled financial institution to sell to another troubled financial institution is not a long-term solution.

For much of this year the gold price has appeared to be inversely related to the perceived fate of the US economy (the key word in the sentence is ‘perceived’). This is hardly surprising since gold, like most commodities, is priced in dollars.

The base metals were mostly in the red on Tuesday. Copper peaked shortly after the New York open, but sagged from there, only to rally late in the day to return from whence it came, finishing at $3.7923/lb., down two-tenths of a cent.

Nickel fell, but not that dramatically, as it closed just off its intraday low at $9.1822/lb., down less than 4¼ cents. Zinc pushed to near $0.86 in the pre-dawn hours, but faded, ending at $0.8263/lb., down just over a penny. Aluminum slipped to $1.3505/lb., also off just over a penny, while lead shot straight up in the pre-dawn hours, then held its gains, adding better than 4 cents, to $0.9708/lb.

Copper was sluggish, but held its ground amid supply…

The base metals were nearly all in the black on Thursday. Copper started up in the pre-dawn hours and climbed until the late morning, but then ran into a determined selloff that sank it back into negative territory at $3.7929/lb., down a penny and a third.

After its run past $1,000 an ounce in March, gold has been dropping. So are we going through a price dip? A market correction? Or is it simply too late for investors to play the gold bull rush.