I certainly have. The bear case for copper looks bad if the US Dollar gets hit because of more cliff-like issues. It's just another cross-current, but a significant one. The bigger one is China of course. Is the good news out of China going to continue...or is it just a blip ?
Oh, the correlation, like many financial ones, is likely to be very weak. Here we go with yet another side-issue: Chinese inflation. Of hand, it would sound bullish for copper, but actually, the market looks at it's potential for the Chinese ministry to become stingy with money. re: "Mining firms, however, added pressure in London, declining as inflation data from China showed consumer prices rose more than expected in December and reached a seven-month high. TheConsumer Price Indexx climbed 2.5%, fueling fears that additional monetary stimulus to boost the economy will be limited" CME Copper futures down on the news....natch.
the alcoa earnings reaction was pretty interesting bullish on china fundamentals but a non event since china can make their own aluminum without alcoa fomc minutes put a temporary halt on fear of a trashed dolllar which you would think would be bearish for commodity prices but good for economy which is bullish for commodities supply and demand looks bad for metals, since at the moment, there is excess supply, so everybody now is just betting on future demand (and the future of the dollar.)
Absolutely. Once those bets get taken off, LOOK OUT BELOW. Anyway, that's my thinking. I think we could see a "Michael Farmer" type move in copper.
No question if the US economy continues to improve 1st and 2nd quarter 2013, this would be constructive for copper....or at least prevent it from collapsing. More importantly is the Chinese economy....they've got quite a stockpile of copper and have no interest in seeing it decline in value. However, they cannot "command" the natural laws of supply and demand forever. Eventually, at some price point, their speculators will cave-in and begin selling. Boy, I wish I could predict when that would happen and what price it would happen !! A Guess: June 2013; Break-Price: $ 2.95 basis June contract.