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Rare metals and rare earths
Rare earths of a lanthanum subset, or lanthanides, are applied in production of permanent magnets, in iron and steel industry and non-ferrous metallurgy, in nuclear, electronic, chemical and other industries. |
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Non-metals
Non-metals are chemical elements that form simple elements with no
metal-specific qualities. Non-metals typically include 22 elements: gases - hydrogen,
nitrogen,
oxygen, fluor, chlorine and inert gases; liquids - bromine; solids - boron, carbon,
silicon, phosphorus,
arsenic, sulphur,
selenium, tellurium, iodine, astatine. |
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Copper may fall next week as U.S. housing slowdown curbs use |
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Copper may drop next week on speculation a slowdown in U.S. housing demand will curb consumption in the world's second-largest user of the metal.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Oct. 4 the housing market is in a "substantial correction" that will lop about a percentage point off economic growth in the second half and restrain expansion next year. An average family house contains 400 pounds of copper, found in wires and pipes.
The metal has slumped 17 percent since May 11 when it traded at a record $8,800 a metric ton in London.
"Collapsing U.S. housing demand will lead to a further fall," said Thomas Au, principal at R.W. Wentworth & Co., a New York-based consulting company.
Six of 12 analysts, investors and traders surveyed by Bloomberg yesterday forecast copper will decline next week. Four expected a gain and two predicted little change.
Copper for delivery in three months on the LME lost $29, or 0.4 percent, to $7,270 a metric ton as of 7:37 a.m. local time. It has dropped 3.6 percent this week. On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, copper for December delivery rose 0.3 percent to $3.331 a pound in electronic trading.
The metal didn't trade on the Shanghai Futures Exchange due to a week-long national holiday in China, the largest copper- consuming nation.
Demand usually tracks industrial activity. The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index fell to 52.9. The gauge was expected to fall to 53.5 from 54.5 in the prior month, based on the median of 64 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey completed before the data was released Oct. 2. Private residential construction spending dropped 1.5 percent, the Commerce Department said Oct. 2.
"The concern on the U.S. economy is far from over," said Roy Carson, a London-based analyst at Triland Metals Ltd., one of 11 companies trading on the floor of the LME.
Copper has fallen from its record as central banks in the U.S., Europe and Japan raised interest rates, triggering speculation that global economic growth will slow next year.
"These fears are overdone," Morgan Stanley, the world's biggest securities firm by market value, said in a report yesterday. An increase in business spending in Asia and Europe will cushion the effects of a U.S. housing slowdown, it said.
Morgan Stanley raised its 2007 forecast for average copper prices by 17 percent to $3.50 a pound, or $7,716 a ton. It also increased this year's forecast to $3.15 a pound, from $2.98. Copper demand will exceed production by 110.000 tons in 2006, the bank said.
Shrinking inventory may indicate expanding demand. Copper stockpiles tracked by the LME dropped 2.7 percent this week to 114,425 tons as of yesterday. That's less than three days of global consumption.
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