Black Enterprise – EXPERTS are predicting that an unprecedented commodity price boom that has seen metal, energy and some agricultural prices – including orange juice and refined sugar – hit recordhighs, is set to continue.
Copper yesterday rose to a record for a fourth consecutive day, leading a rally in metals as investors bet returns will beat those on stocks and bonds. Zinc climbed to an all-time high and nickeljumped to a level not seen in 17 years.
And according to investors, mining groups and sector analysts, instead of signalling a top of the market, hedge funds and some mining executives believe prices have further to rise because theyremain far from their highs in real price terms.
Yesterday gold also reached a 25-year high of dollars 598 a troy ounce, silver a 23-year high of dollars 12.50, copper and zinc hitting new highs of dollars 5,930 and dollars 2,917.5 a tonnerespectively, and Brent crude futures 61 cents higher at dollars 67.90 a barrel and within dollars 1 of their record high. Zinc has more than doubled in price and analyst forecasts copper could riseto as high as dollars 7,000 a metric ton this year.
The surge is being fuelled by global economic growth, tight supply and rising inflows of investment, compounded by conservative planning prices among mining companies which have held back mininginvestment, say analysts and hedge fund managers.
