There are several components of demand. There’s real economic demand (you need the stuff to make other stuff). There is investment demand (you’re buying it in order to make a profit from what you think the price trend is. There is also pure speculation, and it’s possible that some middle-men were flat-out speculating by buying alongside China’s State Reserve Bureau (sort of like the banks and brokers in the U.S. buying Treasuries ahead of the Fed late last year to improve Q4 earnings).
July 1st, 2009 | Dan Denning | 1 comment | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "metals"
Is China Trying to Back its Currency With Metal?
A smattering of articles in recent weeks has highlighted the stockpiling of metals by the China State Reserves Bureau. The Bureau scarfed up 329,000 tonnes of copper in February and 375,000 tonnes in March.
April 22nd, 2009 | Dan Denning | 13 comments | Continued
Where was your Money in 2008?
2008 is now in the rear-view mirror, with virtually every investor shouting “Good riddance!” and praying for a better year to come. Forget about making money, just keeping your head above water was an accomplishment over the past twelve months…
January 14th, 2009 | Doug Hornig | 1 comment | Continued
Emergency Private Pension Plan
The simplest kind of stimulus governments the world over could provide is to cut withholding taxes. Let people keep more of their money from each pay check. People will then do what they have to do. That is, they’ll either use the cash to pay down debts, save it, or spend it. Meanwhile, governments can borrow and spend all they’d like on “shovel ready” projects. This will never happen, of course…
January 14th, 2009 | Dan Denning | 4 comments | Continued