The price of tin has jumped to a new high, making the metal, widely used in electronic goods, the first base metal to surpass the peak it hit during the boom years before the global financial crisis.The record comes as resurgent demand, particularly from Asia, is being met by sluggish supply in all the industrial metals, driving prices higher.
.....
Copper, the red metal used in electrical wiring and piping, rose above $8,200 a tonne for the first time in two years, and there is widespread expectation in the industry that it will post an all-time high above $9,000 within months.
Even aluminium, the laggard of the group whose supply is plentiful, has risen 25 per cent since June and is trading near a two-year high.
This bodes well for manufacturing in the future, as it indicates demand is increasing.
2 comments:
Rising costs bodes well? :) I get what you're saying, prices going up because demand is expected to be higher. Still though, I'm concerned that resource shortages and resultant high prices are going to be an increasing drag on the economy in the coming years.
Of the three, I'd say copper is the metal to watch.
Tin is used to plate conductors against corrosion, increasingly important as more and more devices become portable. It's much cheaper than gold but still relatively rare as industrial metals go. It's also used in lead-free solder, a key part of the EU's (de-facto global) RoHS directive driving a push toward non-toxic substances in electronics, phasing out metals like chromium and lead. I'm no oracle, but tin's price might continue to rise even if manufacturing demand drops.
Aluminium is not like other metals. The ore is laughably abundant but it takes lots of energy to process. Aluminium's price is closely tied to the cost of energy.
Copper, though. . . you just can't make anything without copper these days.
Post a Comment