Welcome to Lord Copper

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

This time, be very, very careful....

04 December 2019

What fun! We’re all off to the polling station again in a week or so’s time for this year’s election. I suppose the thinking could be to get them in while we can, because who knows what the future may bring? Every time, it seems, we’re told ‘this is the most important election for a generation/decade/lifetime’, and yet in the end things generally trudge along in much the same way. This time, though, I think that statement is valid; we do genuinely stand at a fork in the road.

Of Partners, Champagne and Corkscrews - Part Two

27 November 2019

The seismic shift was caused by the termination of the right to convertibility of dollars into gold at $35 per ounce in 1971, and the consequent final breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1973.

Of Partners, Champagne and Corkscrews

20 November 2019

Recent articles by Anthony Lipmann on the Lehmann Trilogy and Clem Danin on life on the floor of the LME in the sixties have reminded me how the corporate structure, way of management, and size of City companies has changed.

Tremor in Chile

13 November 2019

How quickly the world changes. I was in Chile in August, welcomed by members of state owned copper producer Codelco, and visiting old friends in the metal trade. I visited Calama, Chuquicamata, Antofagasta and Mejillones; and saw the Andes and Atacama for the first time. Everywhere I met people who appeared to talk up the exceptionalism of Chile within South America - the only peaceful nation in that part of the world not run by corrupt politicians, revolutionaries, death squads, drug barons or the gun.

The way we were.......

06 November 2019

As we approach the 2020s let us go back six decades and follow a new clerk as he joins H J Enthoven and Sons Ltd on the LME in 1960. H J Enthoven operated two lead smelters; one in Darley Dale, Derbyshire (which is still going) and one then happily pouring out lead and other decidedly toxic fumes over the residents in highly populated Rotherhithe, some three miles south of London Bridge.

Valhalla: Chapter Five

01 November 2019

As the argument continued round and round, another figure joined the group. “Jason Serck!” exclaimed McKee. “Come and join the party. We’re just talking about who killed whom. I think you would fit very well in that discussion, don’t you?

Valhalla: Chapter Four

31 October 2019

Lansky and McKee shook hands, McKee towering over the group. “So you’re Denis Menkov? Victor’s told me the story. He outlived me by quite a few years; I was killed by a hedge fund manager because he wanted revenge for the fact that I outsmarted him over a copper market scam.