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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (19329)	12/22/2004 1:48:52 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Copper Near 2-Wk High After Rise on Stockpiles, Chinese Demand Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Copper futures in New York traded near a two-week high as inventories fell to a 14-year low and imports to China, the world's biggest user, rose last month from October. Stockpiles of copper monitored by the London Metal Exchange fell the most in almost a month, the exchange said yesterday. China's copper imports last month rose 48 percent from the previous, the customs office said yesterday. ``Chinese trade data for November showed a rebound in copper'' and prices were ``underpinned by a further slide in LME stocks,'' Robin Bhar, a base metals analyst at Standard Bank in London in an e-mailed report. Copper for March delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 0.05 cent to $1.442 a pound in after- hours trading at 11:57 a.m. Sydney time. The futures rose 1.6 percent yesterday. Prices in New York have risen 43 percent in the past year, mainly on increased Chinese demand for copper electrical cables and wiring for homes, appliances and cars. China's copper imports rose to 114,037 metric tons in November, from 76,966 tons the month before, the customs office said. In the first 11 months of the year, China imported 1.2 million tons of the metal, down 10 percent on the year before. The lower imports over the year are mainly due to the selling of about 300,000 tons of copper by the country's State Reserve Bureau, Zhou Feng, senior economist at the Information Center of China Minmetals Corp., the country's largest metals trader, said yesterday. ``The latest trade data is a reflection of ongoing strength in Chinese copper demand,'' Ingrid Sternby, a base metals analyst at Barclays Capital in London in an e-mailed report. ``Apparent consumption was up about 8 percent'' for November on the year before, Sternby said. Yesterday, stockpiles of the metal in London Metal Exchange- approved warehouses fell 3.1 percent to 52,650 metric tons, the lowest since July 1990. Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange was bid at $3,122 a metric ton and offered at $3,129 at 12:05 p.m. Sydney time, compared with yesterday's close of $3,090. Yesterday, the metal rose 0.4 percent to its highest since Dec. 1. bloomberg.com