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2008

Sunday 20 April 2008 CHILE
Chilean mining subcontractors continued their labour strike on Saturday for a fourth day. Output was affected at three of the five divisions of state-run Codelco, the world's largest copper producer. The company canceled two shifts at its Teniente division, but work there continued with a skeleton staff. Subcontracted workers argue that large revenues from copper prices at record highs are not trickling down to them. Codelco's Salvador and Andina divisions have been paralyzed since Wednesday. The strike is the latest in a series of sometimes violent protests by subcontractors.

Thursday 04 January 2007 U.S Weekly Jobless Claims rose 10,000 to 329,000.
BASE METAL COMMENTS - COPPER
Metals suffered a second day of selling on the LME, but all except copper and tin managed to close off the lows and above the big-figures they had breached earlier in the day. Copper dropped, posting the largest three-day loss since October 2004, as investors speculated prices are still exaggerated given a weaker demand outlook for the metal used in wires and pipes. The metal's decline below $6,000 a metric ton yesterday, for the first time since April, suggested a technical weakness that will attract more selling, said analysts including Phil Roberts at Barclays Capital in London. “This is just brutal,'' said Randy North, a London-based trader at RBC Capital Markets, a London Metal Exchange member. “People are just standing aside, waiting for systematic funds to finish selling off. It seems to be a one-way train.'' “A lot of it revolves around the weakness in the North American market in the last couple of months,'' said Peter Kettle, research director at London-based metals consultant CRU. Stockpiles rose 625 tons, or 0.3 percent, to 193,175 tons, the LME reported today. That's the highest since March 2004. “If stocks start to come down again, then we'd see a rebound,'' said Robin Bhar, a metals analyst at UBS Ltd. Still, copper may extend its decline to about $5,500, he said. Analysts said investors were waiting for China to come back into the market to buy the metal. "We've got panic selling at the moment and you don't know when that's going to end," an analyst said. "If you see the indications, they (China) are going to come back, and when they do you'll get everyone coming in and covering their short positions and you should see a bounce." We expect further weakness in the copper stocks especially the pure plays like Aur Resources (Target:Cdn$26.00 target, Sector Perform). Aur also has a special Cdn$1 dividend payable to holders of record on January 9th. Short sellers should be aware of this. Once this is paid in theory the target should fall by this amount. We see less downside in Inmet (Target Cdn$65.00, Sector Perform) given its greater diversification. Inmet should benefit more from lower treatment terms for copper and zinc than the other two companies

Copper prices dipped below $6,000 a tonne on Wednesday to almost a nine-month low as inventories swelled.

Copper traded at $5,830 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange. Copper was last trading at that price on April 7, 2006. Copper has slid 30 percent since hitting a record high of $8,800 in May, according to Reuters. Just since September, copper has slid more than 25 percent.

At the beginning of copper’s slide, Andrew Wilkinson in his Hedge Fund Investing service recommended to subscribers that they go short copper through a futures trade or using a copper put as a less risky alternative.

Andrew was right on the money. He told subscribers to close out their futures trade last week for an 84 percent profit or $7,375 per contract. If subscribers had bought five contracts, they’d be sitting on more than $36,000 right now.

Plus, Andrew’s target on his copper put option recommendation hit its target for a 167 percent profit. That’s a pre-brokerage gain of $2,720 per contract. Again, if subscribers bought five contracts, they’d have gained $13,600. And that’s with options, which means you’d never lose more than you invested plus commissions

Tuesday 21 November 2006 reuters Copper perceptions
Dealmaking is hot nowadays. Usually, that means corporate assets are perceived to be generally undervalued. That's always a debatable assumption, but especially so with Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.'s (FCX.N) recently announced agreement to acquire Phelps Dodge Corp. (PD.N) for about $26 billion in cash and stock. Copper, the commodity at the center of the planned acquisition, has been described in many ways, but "undervalued" is not among them. Should it be?

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