Welcome to Lord Copper

Opinions about lots of things - mostly related to the worlds' metal markets

Shameful day, LME

14 September 2022

Corporate reactions to the period leading up to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, and to the day of the funeral itself, are necessarily mixed. Some we can understand, while at others - like the supermarket chain Morrisons who have decided their mark of respect should be to silence the ping noise of the automatic checkout machines, or the Met Office, who have decided that respect is shown by reducing the weather forecast you broadcast - we can rightfully snigger.

Wrong kind of LME experience?

08 September 2022

This isn’t going to be a long read, mainly because I still feel I’m on holiday, but just a couple of thoughts about where the LME is, and where it may be going.

Repo replay

31 August 2022

The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 was driven by an interbank Repo market failure. What does that mean? Firstly we need to understand what a Repo is.

Windfall

17 August 2022

I’m sorry to come back again to the same topic as last week, but the increasingly hysterical reaction to energy prices forces me to. Latest to throw in his plan is Keir Starmer, the leader of the main UK opposition party. He’s come back from his holidays to give us his masterful solution to a global issue: he’ll impose a windfall tax on energy companies - basically, that is, oil and gas producers - because their profit levels are “more than they expected.”

Lacking energy

12 August 2022

One morning this week, I heard a “consumer affairs champion” (not my choice of nomenclature) ranting hysterically - and I do mean hysterically - on Radio 4 about energy prices. The essence of what he was screeching was that we’ll probably all be dead of cold or hunger by the turn of the year, and the government needs to start paying people’s energy bills (OK, that’s a bit simplified, but I think you know what I mean).

Not a happy place

03 August 2022

So far, this year has not been a stellar one for the metals business and the LME. Prices have declined, and the LME has has shown its readiness to embark on a new, innovative policy of cancelling trades, seemingly for no reason other than that somebody either didn’t like the price or couldn’t (wouldn’t?) pay their margin calls. The business is not in a happy place, right now.

LME/OTC - I'll be watching you

13 July 2022

From July 18th, the LME will introduce weekly OTC position reporting across the spectrum of its physically-deliverable metals markets – a requirement on its members and, indirectly, their clients that had been pushed back little more than a year ago.