Copper prices lost half their value since reaching a record intraday level of $4.27 in May on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Comex division.
“Copper is usually a good gauge of economic health because it is broadly used, but more specifically because it is important to construction and equipment manufacturing that tend to precede other [...]
Base metals fell as demand concerns offset firm equities. Industrial metals rose early on Friday but there is still a strong fear about recession.
A strong close for U.S. equities on Thursday, with the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI up more than 4 percent, helped underpin stock markets in Europe and Asia.
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Stocks in Japan plummeted the most in 21 years and saw copper fall in London for a second day.
The Nikkei 225 index slumped 11 percent. The U.S. needs to accelerate steps to bail out financial institutions to help arrest plunging stock values, Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso said in Tokyo. Copper has dropped 27 [...]
Global recession concerns found copper at a 33-month low, dropping up to 8 percent on Thursday. Base metals were able to pare earlier losses when European shares came back slightly from an earlier drop.
There is a very strong link between equities and commodities that will persist for the time being,” Standard Chartered analyst Dan Smith [...]
While Asia was able to offset any demand and price issues happening in the first half of 2008 in the United States the credit crisis is now pulling the copper market down to almost half of what its mid-year peaks were.
From Mumbai to Seoul, analysts are paring consumption estimates, worried that a global slowdown, a [...]
Copper dropped over 5 percent as concerns about copper demand remain strong.
Expectations of weaker global demand for metals were reinforced after the world’s largest copper producer Codelco said the premium for refined copper in Europe will be lower
around $80 a tonne in 2009.
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Copper could be pushed to its marginal cost of production due to low demand. While copper has held up very well compared to other metals during global market upheaval it may still drop further according to David WIlson, senior economist at Norilsk Nickel.
Because the prices are above the marginal cost of production, there is little [...]
Shanghai copper dropped by its four percent limit to its lowest in close to three years, all this despite Thursday’s one-day suspension and a closure of positions. Zinc also fell.
Both markets have hit their downside thresholds four times in five days since reopening after week-long Chinese holidays, chasing tumbling London futures which have plummeted by [...]
Investors buying low jumped US copper futures by 3%. Copper was also supported by a weakening US dollar and the rise of the euro.
Copper for December delivery HGZ8 was trading up 3.80 cents, or 1.6 percent, at $2.3930 a lb by 10:29 a.m. EDT (1429 GMT) on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s COMEX division.
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KGHM, Europe’s top copper miner, believes 2009 will be much more difficult as the lower demand for copper will impact their revenues. They are anticipating a consumer driven market with strong supply.
Pawel Puchalski, analyst with BZ WBK in Warsaw, commented on KGHM’s current standings.
It’s not that the company will sell less copper, but that it [...]
Friday, October 17, 2008
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