2 replies to this topic

[Cirrus]

Here's a cut and past that will help all (including me) see the forest in lieu of the trees. For those that aren't familiar.....Eric Sprott is to comodities and mining fundamentals as Warren Buffet is to long term investing. I have been saying for a while that the US is no longer that significant in setting world commodity prices--only so much as policy impacts the value of the dollar. Eric Sprott writes a once a month article, here a quote regarding China and copper. "In the past month, China announced its intention to spend $200 billion to expand its railroad system with 10,500 miles of new track by 2010. This will amount to a 23% increase in China’s railway system. Put another way, within a paltry three years time, China will have built almost one quarter of the railways that, up until now, it has ever built in its history. This is a massive project that will require massive amounts of steel and other commodities. China has also announced a 6500 km pipeline to be completed by 2010. This will be double the length of their longest pipeline currently, and will require massive amounts of stainless steel; i.e. nickel and molybdenum. Railroads and pipelines are merely the tip of the iceberg. China is currently building power plants at the rate of two every week. To put this in perspective, this is five times the rate at which power plants are being constructed in the US. (Remember that the US economy, on a non-PPP basis, is supposedly five times the size of China’s!) China is already the world’s largest consumer of copper. As an aside, to put this in perspective, in 1990 the US consumed four times as much copper as China, and as recently as 2001 the US was still a bigger consumer of copper than China. Today China consumes twice as much copper as the US. This goes to show how quickly things can change when 10%+ growth rates enter into the equation! 50% of China’s copper consumption currently goes toward power generation and transmission. It is little wonder, therefore, that China’s copper consumption continues to grow north of 10% every year. Needless to say, this fact bodes well for copper demand and copper prices going forward. Much has been made of the negative implications for copper demand of the slowdown in US homebuilding. It would appear that the concerns were overblown because people underestimated China’s appetite for the metal, which more than makes up for any shortfall in copper demand due to weakness in the US housing market. Recently, the president of Codelco, the world’s largest copper company, said that China “is building cities at an unimaginable rate… urbanization in general demands a lot of copper.” As far as copper is concerned, China is clearly king. In fact, just the growth in Chinese copper demand is greater than all the copper that will be used in US housing this year."

[CLK]

Cirrus, Do you have some good LT picks in steels and others, BB's to large cap for this outlook ? Thanks.

[hiker]

CLK,

this is one Eric Bolling at the Nymex talks often about, and I guess W. Buffett has a share of it -

http://stockcharts.c...allery.html?PKX

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major copper and moly producer, esp. now that is has merged with PD.....not recommending it here....just a name for you -

http://stockcharts.c...allery.html?fcx

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steels -

Symbol/ Pct from Yr High / today's Change
- - - - - AKS Down 4.00% Up 0.46 Up 1.51%
- - - - - ATI Down 8.49% Up 2.73 Up 2.56%
- - - - - CHAP Down 8.37% Down 0.31 Down 0.45%
- - - - - CMC Down 4.23% Up 0.53 Up 1.61%
- - - - - CRS Down 13.10% Up 3.27 Up 2.72%
- - - - - GGB Down 2.78% Up 0.43 Up 2.16%
- - - - - IPS Down 6.13% Down 0.46 Down 0.31%
- - - - - MM Down 1.21% Up 1.16 Up 2.42%
- - - - - MT Down 2.16% Up 1.34 Up 2.53%
- - - - - NUE Down 6.42% Up 0.36 Up 0.56%
- - - - - PKX Down 1.18% Up 1.80 Up 1.71%
- - - - - RS Down 3.35% Up 0.94 Up 1.58%
- - - - - RTI Down 17.55% Up 3.22 Up 4.01%
- - - - - SCHN Down 2.95% Up 0.72 Up 1.40%
- - - - - SHLO Down 50.64% Up 0.39 Up 3.92%
- - - - - SID Down 2.64% Up 1.95 Up 4.68%
- - - - - STLD Down 3.98% Up 0.66 Up 1.49%
- - - - - TONS Down 8.24% Up 0.49 Up 1.00%
- - - - - TPO Down 74.83% Down 0.04 Down 5.19%
- - - - - TS Down 11.19% Up 0.19 Up 0.41%
- - - - - TXI Down 6.34% Up 0.90 Up 1.19%
- - - - - X Down 4.02% Up 2.17 Up

copper plays -

Symbol Pct from Yr High Change
- - - - - BHP Down 2.87% Up 1.22 Up 2.51%
- - - - - CUP Down 33.33% Up 0.24 Up 5.50%
- - - - - CUU.V Down 20.50% Up 0.06 Up 4.92%
- - - - - FCX Down 4.36% Up 1.51 Up 2.24%
- - - - - IVN Down 6.52% Down 0.15 Down 1.23%
- - - - - MAD Down 5.90% Down 0.80 Down 5.90%
- - - - - OLN Down 11.90% Up 0.38 Up 2.20%
- - - - - PCU Down 8.43% Up 1.80 Up 2.28%
- - - - - TGB Down 24.00% Up 0.08 Up 2.53%
- - - - - TNRO.OB Down 32.31% Down 0.03 Down 1.35%
- - - - - WIRE Down 40.38% Up 0.68 Up 2.47%
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btw, here is a link of stocks I compiled that are in a rising trend and near their highs -

http://www.traders-t...showtopic=69731

Edited by hiker, 02 May 2007 - 02:39 PM.