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Gold/Mining/Energy : Precious and Base Metal Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ramsey Su who wrote (32408)	11/18/2004 10:41:02 AM
From: Stephen O	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 39344

Copper Climbs to 5-Week High on Dollar; Lead Trades at Record By Simon Casey Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Copper prices rose to a five-week high in London as the dollar fell to a record low against the euro, making the metal cheaper for holders of the European currency. Lead futures rose to a record. The dollar touched $1.3075 against the euro, according to the EBS electronic currency dealing system, on speculation central banks may be unable to stem its decline. Copper inventories in warehouses monitored by the London Metal Exchange fell more than 2 percent for second day, extending a 14-year low. `It's the dollar,'' Roy Carson, a trader at Triland Metals in London, said in a telephone interview. ``Everything else is supportive. Stocks are down.'' Copper for delivery in three months rose $50, or 1.7 percent, to $3,073 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange at 9:56 a.m. It has climbed 12 percent since Oct. 14, recovering from an 11 percent plunge the previous day that was the biggest in 16 years. Prices peaked at a 15-year high of $3,179.50 on Oct. 11. ``There is now a growing concern that little will be done to slow dollar's slide against the euro,'' Tony Yu, a metals analyst at Standard Bank in London, said in an e-mailed report. The dollar has dropped 7.3 percent against the euro in the past two months and traded today near a seven-month low against the yen. Finance ministers and central bank governors from the world's biggest economies probably won't be able to persuade U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow to support the dollar when they meet this weekend in Berlin. Snow yesterday in London said the history of government efforts to influence currency values ``is at best unrewarding and checkered.'' Stockpiles Shrink The dollar's drop made copper easier to buy and more appealing as an investment as supplies of the metal dwindle. Stockpiles in LME warehouses dropped to 63,875 tons, the lowest since May 1990, bringing the past year's slide to 87 percent because of rising demand from makers of wiring, tubing and other products in China and the U.S., the two biggest users. Global copper demand will rise 6.6 percent this year to 16.5 million tons, beating production from mines and scrapyards by 603,000 tons, Barclays Capital in London forecast last month. China is turning about one-third of its copper into cable and wiring for its power grid. Copper in the U.S. is used mostly in construction. U.S. housing starts rose 6.4 percent in October to an annual rate of 2.027 million residential units, the Commerce Department said yesterday. Lead Soars Lead for deliver in three months rose $20, or 2.1 percent, to $980. The metal used to make car batteries reached $996, the highest since the contracts began trading on the LME in 1987. ``Stocks are very low,'' Carson said. LME inventories have slid 68 percent in the past year to 45,775 tons as consumers withdraw metal because of forecasts that demand will outpace production. Consumption this year will rise 2 percent to 5.17 million tons, the International Lead & Zinc Study Group said yesterday, surpassing output by 130,000 tons. Most other LME metals also rose. Aluminum was up $3 to $1,819, zinc climbed $19 to $1,157 and tin added $75 to $9,100. Nickel alone fell, losing $100 to $14,300. --With reporting by Matt Chamber sin Melbourne, John Brinsley in Tokyo, and Rodrigo Davies and Matthew Craze in London. Editor: Farr