I guess everyone's been on holiday...
In case you missed this, a great read form the guy behind US Global Investors:
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The Gold Report: Frank, U. S. Global Investors has published a chart showing copper price fluctuations on a monthly basis with 30-, 15- and 5-year trend lines. Can you speak to why that chart is important?
Frank Holmes: First let me start with a little background. There was a wonderful book written back in the '30s called The Battle for Investment Survival by Gerald Loeb. When I first got in the business, I was told I had to read it every year to remind myself of the cycles, different asset classes, and the value drivers for them. And the book says buy copper when it’s soft in November and sell in March.
The 30-year pattern on the graph follows what Loeb's book advised and what was the rule of thumb when I first got into this business—that "buy in November and sell in March." This was because of seasonal stockpiling during winter months leading into major building and construction projects in the spring and summer months.
About 15 years ago, when China started becoming a significant buyer of copper, the pattern started to change. This pattern shows copper prices rising from January through May and then trading pretty much sideways for the rest of the year, with modest peaks and valleys along the way. A similar pattern is drawn to represent the past five years. The five-year and 15-year cycles are very much aligned with the infrastructure spending taking place in China, as well as with the lack of new mine supply coming on-stream from anywhere in the world to meet this increasing demand.
China has changed the demand for copper by making very strong commitments in infrastructure spending. Five years ago they were building power stations –now they’re building power lines. They’re basically expanding their spider web of copper wire all across the country to get more people access to electricity, especially in the rural areas, and this is setting up demand for copper that relates to their infrastructure spending.
Click here for the whole story...and the graph.
