News

July 07, 2008

The Presses Look Set To Run Hot Printing Treasuries, As Metals Prices Hit New Highs and Lows

By Rob Davies

There can be few better illustrations of the divergent nature of this market than last week’s metals price movements. Copper closed at a new all time high of US$8,980 a tonne, while lead and zinc fell to three year lows of US$1,619 and US$1,797 a tonne respectively. Aluminium was a strong market, flirting at record highs of US$3,137 a tonne, while nickel remained unloved at US$20,960 a tonne.

Meanwhile, equity market commentators got very excited by the finalisation of contract iron ore agreements that give the two Australian producers increases of between 80 per cent and 90 per cent. That settlement, the commentators seemed to say, denoted the top of the market and the sell-off in big cap miners proved the point. And as if to reinforce the point they highlighted the decline in spot coal prices last week. As if spot prices means anything.

There can be no denying that the big cap...