This week we saw oil prices climb back above $40 a barrel and that triggered higher prices for most of our metals, too.
There’s a big meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries this weekend and all signs point to a continued freeze in production, at least among major producers Russia and Saudi Arabia so many speculators and market watchers are becoming bullish on oil. Oh, how quickly they turn!
Oil and Inflation
A direct knock-off of this oil mini surge is price inflation of everything that oil is used to produce, whether as a base material or for transport and production costs. What’s our favorite industrial metal that also has investment potential and is still considered so downright precious?
That’s right, silver! Despite being mined with just about every other metal in the world silver is still a precious metal and its industrial uses combined this week with investors grabbing it up to create a sweet spot for the gray metal. As of this writing it’s riding a 10-month high and looking to gain even more.
Aluminum Still Lags
However, not all metals are enjoying a healthy rebound. Alcoa (NYSE:AA) reported first-quarter results this week and things weren’t so good for the aluminum smelter. How bad was it? Profits fell 92%. So, yeah, pretty bad.
Our own Stuart Burns put virtual pen to paper and explained that, thanks to Chinese overproduction and stockpiling, smelting aluminum simply isn’t a good business to be in right now. He even called it “an industry on the cusp of shooting itself in the foot.”
If there’s a better example of why Alcoa will soon split itself into two and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld will join the new aerospace, titanium and value-added products half, I haven’t seen it.
Copper Loses All its Gains
My colleague Raul de Frutos also examined why copper has underachieved this year, even amidst the Q1 base metals rally. Dr. Copper is apparently only starting on the back nine and didn’t do any real work in Q1. We’ll monitor the situation with the rest of the base metals in Q2.
by Jeff Yoders