I always find Marc Faber both entertaining and informative. …but would I enjoy listening to him as much if he didn’t have that accent? Not sure. All I know is that he always reminds me of Dr Strangelove. Here is a link to a one hour long speech he recently gave at the Mises Institute titled “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, When is the Next AIG to Fall?”

Boom · Doom · Gloom · Marc Faber · Mr Bernanke · Mr Greenspan · Mr Krugman

A recent article from Reuters titled “Economic optimism lifts US copper to 13-month peak” provides an example of the leap of faith many are taking when they observe rising copper prices and conclude that global economic prospects are brighter. The article included a lot of bullet points, but most related to matters unrelated and unconnected to economic activity.

Some of the discussion related to charting. Terms such as “double bottom neckline” and “resistance level” may have meaning among charting traders, but those terms should be confined to discussions relating to where people betting/gambling/speculating on the copper price see the price heading. In other words speculators who are long copper because of a chart pattern shouldn’t lead a journalist or sub editor to frame the article around economic matters. The predictions being made based on “double bottom neckline” are unrelated to whether or not economic optimism exists and are unrelated to economic data. For clarity I am not saying a trader can’t profit from these things, but merely that they are what they are, and what they are is independent of economic fundamentals.

Another bullet point related to housing sales. The assumption is presumably that, as a so-called bellwether metal, a rise in housing sales means a rise in construction, which means a rise in copper consumption, which means an expectation of a rise in demand. Below is a chart of US copper consumption this decade. For reasons unclear to me consumption has been falling all decade. The International Copper Study Group (ICSG) has forecast consumption in the USA, Europe and Japan to be down approximately 17% this year.

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copper · LME prices · LME stockpiles · trade weighted index