Copper Hits New All-Time High

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In today’s economic news,


the Commerce Department reported that Wholesale Inventories rose 0.4% and that
Wholesale Sales fell 0.7%.
The rise in Wholesale
Inventories was slightly less than expected


(report).
Comments from the Fed’s Painal were released today and can be found

in our
Economic
News
section.

The news increased the likelihood of further interest rate rises,
boosting the US Dollar, while adding selling
pressure to US Treasuries. Approximately $100 Bln of Treasuries is due to be
issued over the coming weeks and traders braced for increasing supply by selling
all maturities. 10yr T-Notes (Futures Pivots)
had their biggest fall in 1-month.


Chart courtesy of FutureSource Xtra

The energies closed slightly lower, with
Natural Gas
(Futures Pivots)
attempting to stabilize while the other contracts began to roll over. Unusually
warm winter weather has contributed to a build in supplies that has forced
prices lower. 


Chart courtesy of FutureSource Xtra

In the metals, Silver
sold off heavily along with
Gold

(Futures Pivots),
which retrerated
from yesterday’s multi-year
high. However, Copper bucked the trend,
reaching another new all-time high. High prices failed to help
Phelps Dodge
(
PD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, which reported
disappointing earnings before the bell today due to “Copper Price Protection
Programs” — in other words hedging, that ended up resulting in losses (full
story
).


Chart courtesy of FutureSource Xtra


Economic News

US November Wholesale Inventories Rise 0.4%; Sales Fall 0.7% (report).

Ashton Dorkins

ashtond@tradingmarkets.com