Metals craze boosts prices far into future

The feeding frenzy for metals has driven speculators to snap up contracts more than five years ahead, boosting prices far into the future, a leading Barclays Capital analyst said on Wednesday.
With three-month futures for many London Metal Exchange (LME) at or near multi-year highs and flagship copper at record peaks, interest in contracts many years ahead is strong and growing, analyst Ingrid Sternby told Reuters in an interview.
"With prices so high, market participants are reluctant to buy three-months contracts so consumers and funds are looking to buy further out along the forward curve," Sternby, base metals analyst at the investment bank, said.
Investors are buying forward contracts as far ahead as 63 months in the future - the maximum term traded on the LME - in search of bargains.
"This means that consumers will have to live with a much higher price environment than in the past," Sternby said.
Futures contracts for 63-month copper have risen from $1,833 a tonne in June 2004 to $2,438 this week, up 33 percent.
In the same period three-months prices, fuelled by strong demand from China and speculative buying, have risen 45 percent to a record $3,725, but Sternby said volatility in far forward dates was usually well below nearby dates.
"This takes some of the heat out of the nearby part of the forward curve and we are seeing far forward prices well supported or moving higher," she said.
Sternby said metals markets, along with energy, had a similar fundamental structure - under-investment in new supply and higher trend rates in demand growth.
She said there had been a huge investor interest in commodities and saw no signs of a slow down.
"Many of these investors are looking at commodities to diversify portfolios. A lot of that money is in for the long term and is unlikely to be removed due to short term fluctuations."
She said investors were becoming more sophisticated, looking at markets where nearby prices are higher than further forward - known in the trade as backwardation.
That means investments are self financing - lending prompt metal to the market at a premium, which can be set against storage and insurance costs.
"Investors are looking more and more at markets that are in backwardation. Until recently the main investor focus has been in broad commodity indices such as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, heavily geared towards energy."
"But now we are seeing more interest in structured notes, more geared toward the base metals," she said.