20页 2007年1月月报

The New Year started in dramatic fashion with 3-month official prices
plunging $793/t (-12.5%) during the first five trading days, falling from
$6325/t at the end of December to $5533/t on January 8th. They have
since staged a recovery and are currently oscillating around the $5700/t
mark. (See page 2)
• Current market indicators, namely rising inventories, weaker prices and the
steady build in short positions by the funds, suggest that copper’s bull-run
may be coming to an end. However, this supposition may be somewhat
premature and the true direction of the market is unlikely to become fully
evident until China’s buying requirements are better understood once
consumers return to work in the second half of February, after the New Year
holiday. (See pages 3 & 4)
• It has become apparent that our demand estimates for last year were too
optimistic in some cases. Therefore we have lowered them accordingly and
now estimate that global demand grew by 3.4% in 2006. This year we
anticipate stronger demand growth with global refined copper consumption
increasing by 4.1% to ~18.2Mt. (See pages 5-9)