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***MEIR ON METALS***

July 03, 2009 - 17:48 GMT

Analyst Ed Meir looks at what's moving the metal markets on Friday

Copper: Copper is at $4,990 as of this writing, down $45, but the complex has been holding up fairly well over the last 24 hours considering the carnage that the rise in the US nonfarm payrolls number caused on Thursday. In this regard, the US Labor Department reported that the economy shed 467,000 jobs in June, 100,000 more than expected. This reversed the modest declines we were seeing of late in this series, as layoff notices flooded across the manufacturing, construction, and service-sector industries. The education and health care sectors were the only ones to add jobs. In the meantime, the unemployment rate pushed higher to 9.5%....

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