Thursday, September 17, 2009

Pig Farmers Getting Involved

Chinese demand for copper is through the roof.

Real industrial demand, government stockpiling and pig farmer speculation are all behind the surge. Yes. pig farmers. You read that correctly. From Bloomberg:

"Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) --

Private investors in China, the world’s largest metals user, have stockpiled “substantial” quantities of
copper as the government ramps up stimulus spending to spur the economy, according to Sucden Financial Ltd.

Pig farmers and other speculators may have amassed more than 50,000 metric tons,
Jeremy Goldwyn, who oversees business development in Asia for London-based Sucden, wrote in an e- mailed report after a visit to China. That’s about half the level of inventories tallied by the Shanghai Futures Exchange, which stood last week at a two-year high of 97,396 tons."

It's ironic that the media are willing to take a shot at estimating the extent of retail speculation in the copper market, but even a rough estimate of the effect of speculation on oil prices is hard to come by.

I wish the above farmers would devote time and money to creating and exporting more bacon. Lower prices would be good.

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Futures up again ahead of the inconclusive economic data in a couple of hours. Having fun yet?

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Oracle missed last night. I still like it. Cash flow machine.

3 comments:

Cioara Andrei said...

Foarte interesat subiectul postat de tine, m-am uitat pe blogul tau si imi place ce am vazu am sa mai revin cu siguranta.
O zi buna!

braaak said...

Sorry, I don't understand that. What language is it?

braaak said...

Nver mind. My wife figured it out