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Base metals prices fall in LME officials amid bearish European data

February 22, 2012 - 14:39 GMT Location: London

KEYWORDS: copper prices , aluminium prices , nickel prices , Metal Bulletin , LME , base metals prices

Base metals prices continued falling in official trading on the London Metal Exchange on Wednesday February 22, as disappointing European data added to trader doubts that improved prices are justified.

Three-month copper settled at $8,409/410 per tonne compared with an opening price of $8,450 per tonne. “The metals continued to rally initially this morning, helped by yesterday afternoon’s momentum, an improvement in the HSBC China Flash Manufacturing PMI [purchasing managers’ index] and by stronger Chinese equities,” an analyst said in a note. “A poor set of European...

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Aluminium

May 24, 2012 17:07 CLOSE TO CLOSE: Base metals follow euro higher in LME kerb
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Copper

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Nickel & Tin

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Comment & analysis

EXPERT VIEW FROM ERNST & YOUNG: Horror week favours the brave

Seven days is a long time in the investment world, but last week must have felt longer than most.
COMMENT: When super-cycle poster child BHP Billiton trims its plans...

BHP Billiton is one of the poster children for the commodities super-cycle: a mining company whose immense upstream assets in copper and iron ore have fed the industrialisation of China since the early years of the 21st century and enabled it to return $52 billion to shareholders between 2001 and 2011.
LORD COPPER: There is nothing to fear after JP Morgan loss ...

So, here we go again. Another bank, another huge trade gone bad. This one doesn’t even appear to have been a case of rogue trading; a whole desk seems to have been operating with the full knowledge of the management and/or risk committee.