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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: yard_man who wrote (14339)	7/10/1998 8:56:00 AM
From: Giraffe	Respond to of 116895

BASE METALS: Under an Asian cloud By Kenneth Gooding and Paul Solman Worries about Asian economies, particularly about Japanese fiscal policy, continued to weigh on base metal prices on Thursday. Copper slipped to a 12-year low of $1,586 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange while the LME's other "flagship" metal, aluminium, fell to $1,286 a tonne, its lowest for four years. Nickel was at a4«-year low of $4,165 a tonne and, according to Alan Williamson, analyst at Deutsche Bank, "following the weak sentiment of recent days, it looks likely to test the 10-year low of $4,030 a tonne seen in October 1993". Rhona O'Connell, analyst at T. Hoare, points out in the broker's latest Resource Markets review that base metals prices in real terms are as low as they have been for 25 years - and gold is "in the same boat". She says, however: "Metal prices look to be bouncing along the bottom, though there may be a further small drop in copper and nickel. Although we cannot yet call a new bull market, we look to be close to the end of the bear market." The weaker yen was blamed by dealers for another slip in gold's price, down $1.55 a troy ounce to $291.45 at the close in London on Thursday. There was still confusion about the impact on the market of the European Central Bank's decision to hold 15 per cent of its reserves in gold. Tony Warwick-Ching at Flemings Global Mining Group pointed out that no indication had been given about what gold price would be used. "At $295 an ounce the ECB takes a relatively modest 690 tonnes. At $35 an ounce it adopts 5,840 tonnes - but we think the current market price is closer to reality." Cocoa fell on the London International Financial Futures Exchange after failing to hold above œ1,100 a tonne. The benchmark September contract finished down at œ1,085 a tonne, œ14 below Wednesday's close. The market is keeping a close watch on weather reports from Ivory Coast. The 1997-98 crop is expected to total 1.13m tonnes while early predictions put the 1998-99 harvest at 1.1m tonnes. A clearer picture usually emerges in August when plant survival and growth rates are confirmed. Coffee also fell slightly, with the September contract down $11 at $1,597 a tonne. ft.com