Skip to main content

Home/ Copper end use trends/ Group items tagged 2008-crisis

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Panos Kotseras

US - Mueller's 2008 sales results - 0 views

www.muellerindustries.com

Mueller 2008 sales

shared by Panos Kotseras on 05 Feb 09 - Cached
  • Panos Kotseras on 05 Feb 09
     
    Mueller Industries, Inc. has announced its sales results for 2008. Net income in 2008 amounted to US$ 80.8 million, compared with US$ 115.5 million realised in 2007. Net income in Q4 2008 reached US$ 7.8 million compared to US$ 28.8 million in the same period in 2007. The company attributed the sharp contraction in its Q4 income mainly to weak shipments and the lower average cost of copper. The plumbing and refrigeration segment has been hit by slowing demand and higher per unit conversion costs on lower production volumes. In addition, European copper tube activities were interrupted for approximately four weeks due to a fire. In response to the ongoing economic crisis, the company's strategy for 2009 is to readjust operations and reduce costs.
Wade Ren

The end of Bretton Woods 2? - 0 views

blogs.cfr.org/...the-end-of-bretton-woods-2

2008-crisis economics

shared by Wade Ren on 29 Oct 08 - Cached
  • The Bretton Woods 2 system – where China and then the oil-exporters provided (subsidized) financing to the US to sustain their exports – will come close to ending, at least temporarily. If the US and Europe are not importing much, the rest of the world won’t be exporting much.
  • And rather than ending with a whimper, Bretton Woods 2 may end with a bang. In some sense Bretton Woods 2 has been on life support for a while now. China’s recent export growth has depended far more on Europe than on the US. US demand for non-oil imports peaked in 2006. One irony of the past year is that the US was borrowing far more from China that it was buying from China. Campaign rhetoric that the US was paying for Saudi oil with funds borrowed from China isn’t far off – though it leaves out the fact that the US also borrows from Saudi Arabia to pay for Venezuelan, Mexican and Nigerian oil.
  • If Bretton Woods 2 ends in 2009 – if US demand for imports falls sharply in the last part of 2008 and early 2009, bringing the US trade deficit down – it won’t have ended in the way Nouriel and I outlined back in late 2004 and early 2005. We postulated that foreign demand for US debt would dry up – pushing up US Treasury rates and delivering a nasty shock to a housing-centric economy. As Brad DeLong notes, it didn’t quite play out that way. The US and European banking system collapsed before the balance of financial terror collapsed. Dr. DeLong writes: All of us from Lawrence Summers to John Taylor were expecting a very different financial crisis. We were expecting the ‘Balance of Financial Terror’ between Asia and America to collapse and produce chaos. We are not having that financial crisis. Instead we are having a very different financial crisis. Catastrophic failures of risk management throughout the entire banking sector caused a relatively minor collapse in housing prices to freeze up global finance to a degree that has not been seen since the Great Depression. The end result of this crisis though could be rather similar: a sharp contraction in credit, a fall in US economic activity, a fall in US imports and a fall in the amount of foreign financing the US needs.* The US government is (possibly) trying to offset the fall in private demand by borrowing more and spending more — but as of now there is realistic risk that the fall in private activity will trump the fiscal stimulus.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Or, to put it more succinctly, Bretton Woods 2, as it evolved, hinged both on the willingness of foreign central banks to take the currency risk associated with lending to the US at low rates in dollars despite the United States large current account deficit AND the willingness of private financial intermediaries to take the credit risk associated with lending at low rates to highly-indebted US households.
  • But now US financial institutions are neither willing nor able to take on the risk of lending even more to US households. For a while the US government was able to ramp up its lending to households (notably through the Agencies) and in the process effectively take over the function previously performed by the private financial system (over the last four quarters, the flow of funds data indicates that the Agencies provided around $800 billion of net credit to US households). But now the US government is struggling to keep the financial system from collapsing. It doesn’t seem like it will able to avoid a sharp fall in the overall availability of credit.
  • It is now clear how the financial sector kept profits up: it took on more risk, as it shifted from borrowing short to buy safe long-term assets (Treasuries and Agencies) to borrowing short to buy risky long-term assets. Leverage in the system also increased (and for some broker dealers that seems to be an understatement), as more and more financial institutions believed that the US had entered into an era of little macroeconomic or financial volatility. The net result seems to have been a truly explosive concentration of risk in the hands of a core set of financial intermediaries in the US and Europe. Securitization – it seems – actually didn’t disperse risk into the hands of institutions able to handle it.
  • I hope that the process of adjustment now underway isn’t as sharp as I fear. The US economy gradually can shift from producing MBS for sale to US investors flush with cash from the sale of safe securities to China and Saudi Arabia to producing goods and services for export – but it cannot shift from churning out complex debt securities to producing goods and services overnight. Indeed, in a slowing US and global economy, improvements in the US deficit will likely come from faster falls in US imports than in US exports – not from ongoing growth in US exports.
  • But right now it looks like there is a real risk that the adjustment won’t be gradual. And it certainly looks like the flow of Chinese (and Gulf) savings to US households over the past few years has produced one of the largest misallocations of global capital in recent history.
  • US taxpayers are going to be hit with a large tab for the credit risk taken on by undercapitalized financial intermediaries. Chinese taxpayers may get hit with a similar tab for the losses their central bank incurred by overpaying for US and European assets as part of its policy of holding its exchange rate down. The TARP is around 5% of US GDP. There are plausible estimates that China’s currency losses will prove to be of comparable magnitude. Charles Dumas puts the cost at above 5% of GDP: “Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research estimates that China makes 1-2 per cent on its (largely) dollar reserves. It then loses up to 10 per cent on the exchange rate and suffers a Chinese inflation rate of 6 per cent for a total real return in renminbi of about minus 15 per cent. That is a loss of $270bn a year, or a stunning 7-8 per cent of gross domestic product.”
  • Jboss — if some of the Chinese inflow could be redirected into investment in alternative energy, that would indeed be a win/ win. Some infrastructure bank style ideas have promise in my view — basically, the flow that used to go to freddie/ fannie could go to wind farms and the like. I would rather see more adjustment in china (i.e. more investment in Chinese infrastructure) but during the transition, if there is one, to a lower Chinese surplus, redirecting chinese financing toward new energy tech would be offer real benefits.
  • China likes 3rd generation nuclear power. Safe, lower cost than NG or coal, very much lower cost than coal with carbon sequestering, and zero carbon footprint. Wind is about 4X more expensive than our electric costs now. That’s in an area with consistent wind. Solar is worse. I don’t know if we can sucker them into investing in our technical fairy tales. Here’s a easy primer on 3rd gen nukes. http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower
    • Wade Ren
      Wade Ren on 29 Oct 08
       
      is this true?
  • btw, solar thermal installations are so easy & affordable to retrofit onto existing structures, it’s amazing that there aren’t more of them here…until you realize that they work to decentralize energy. cedric — china is already doing it in china. they are way ahead of the curve over there. my partner brought back some photos of shanghai — rows of middle class homes each with a small solar panel on top. and that’s just the tip of the iceberg — an architect friend just came back from beijing and wants to move to china (he’s into designing self-powering structures and is incredibly frustrated by the bureaucracy and cost-prohibitive measures in the US).
  • I went to engineering school right after the Arab Oil Embargo, and alternative energy was a hot topic then. All the same stuff you hear of nowadays. They even offered entire courses on it , which I took. Then my first mini career was in the power plant biz, before Volker killed it with interest rates and the Saudies killed any interest in alt. energy with their big oil field discovery. For the last 5 years I’ve been researching what’s changed, and it is frighteningly little. Solar cells are still expensive and only have a 15% conversion efficiency. They developed the new cost reduced film technology, but that knocks down efficiency to 7%. Wind power works where there is wind constantly. Generators are mature technology and are already 90 some percent efficient. Geothermal, tidal, ect. work where they are available. Looks like coal gasification and synfuel is out because it makes too much CO2. Good news is 3rd gen nuclear is way better than 1st gen plants. Hybrid cars are good, and battery technology is finally getting barely good enough for all electric cars to be practical.
  • According to news report today, Japan’s trade surplus is less than 1 billion $ in September 08, a whopping 94% decrease compared to September 07. Does it imply that going forward Japan can not buy as much treasury as before?
Panos Kotseras

France - Nexans announces Q1 results - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...idUKLL6076120090422

Nexans sales results

shared by Panos Kotseras on 22 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Panos Kotseras on 22 Apr 09
     
    Nexans, the world's largest cable maker, has announced its sales results for Q1 2009. In the three months to March 31, sales amounted to 1.245 billion euros (US$1.61 billion), down by 28.5% compared with the same period in 2008 at constant metal prices. Net debt at the end of Q1 was reduced to 362 million euros (US$468 million) compared to 536 million euros (US$693 million) at the end of Q4 2008. The company said that in response to the economic crisis, it will accelerate restructuring and cut the workforce by 900. Nexans has restructured its business in Canada while it intends to shut down its Building Cable business in Germany. Further plans may be announced mainly in Europe.
Colin Bennett

Financial crisis hits some Peru mining projects - 0 views

www.chinamining.org/...1225871247d18851.html

copper mining trends Southern Xstrata

shared by Colin Bennett on 06 Nov 08 - Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 06 Nov 08
     
    Like Inca Pacific, Southern Copper Corp, Candente Resources, Strike Resources Ltd and Newmont Mining Corp (NEM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) have complained of having to reexamine or delay their projects in Peru because of the global crisis. Southern Copper has said plans for its Los Chancas would be evaluated, and that it may consider dipping into dividends for project funding.
Colin Bennett

After the era of excess - 0 views

whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/...after-the-era-of-excess

trends copper economy

shared by Colin Bennett on 04 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 04 Mar 09
     
    Instead, America's consumption binge drew support from two major asset bubbles-property and credit. Courtesy of cheap and freely available credit, in conjunction with record housing price appreciation, consumers tripled the rate of net equity extraction from their homes, from 3 percent of disposable personal income in 2001 to 9 percent in 2006. Only by levering increasingly overvalued homes could Americans go on the biggest consumption binge in modern history. And now those twin bubbles-property and credit-have burst, and so has the US consumption bubble: real consumer spending fell at an unprecedented 3.5 percent average annual rate in the two final quarters of 2008. While the original excesses were made in America, the rest of the world was delighted to go along for the ride. With the United States lacking in internal saving, it had to import surplus savings from abroad in order to grow-and ran massive current-account and trade deficits to attract that capital. This fit perfectly with the macro-imbalances of the export-led developing countries of Asia, whose exports exceeded a record 45 percent of regional GDP in 2007-fully ten percentage points higher than their share ten years earlier, in the depths of the Asian financial crisis. China led the charge, taking its exports from 20 percent, to 40 percent of its GDP over the past seven years alone. The export-led growth in developing Asia could well be described as a second-order bubble-in effect, a derivative of the one in US consumption.
Colin Bennett

IMF Regional Economic Outlook: Asia and Pacific - 0 views

www.imf.org/...areo1012.htm

trends Copper China growth economy

shared by Colin Bennett on 22 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Growth in the Asia-Pacific region has slowed. External headwinds played a major role, as the recovery in advanced economies suffered setbacks. Weaker momentum in China and India also weighed on regional economies. For Asia as a whole, GDP growth fell to its lowest rate since the 2008 global financial crisis during the first half of 2012. With inflationary pressures easing, macroeconomic policy stances remained generally supportive of domestic demand and in some cases were eased further in response to the slowdown. More broadly, financial conditions remain accommodative, and capital inflows have resumed. Going forward, growth is projected to pick up very gradually, and Asia should remain the global growth leader, expanding over 2 percentage points faster than the world average next year. However, considerable downside risks remain, in particular with regard to the euro area crisis. The priorities for policymakers are to support noninflationary growth, maintain financial stability, and remain responsive to weaker-than-expected outcomes. Refocusing structural and fiscal reform efforts toward sustained and more inclusive growth remains a priority.
Colin Bennett

As Financial Markets Circle the Drain, What Happens to Clean Energy? - 0 views

www.cleantechblog.com/...markets-circle-drain-what.html

energy trends

shared by Colin Bennett on 30 Sep 08 - Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 30 Sep 08
     
    it is my professional responsibility - both to myself and to those I serve - to begin speculating how the current crisis may affect the realm of clean energy.
Colin Bennett

Aluminium prices stabilized at a low level-China Mining - 0 views

www.chinamining.org/...1226040281d18921.html

aluminium trends copper

shared by Colin Bennett on 07 Nov 08 - Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 07 Nov 08
     
    Aluminium prices at LME and SHFE have stopped slumping at a low level since mid October, after major aluminium enterprises reduced production on the market downturn. Under the current economic recession and financial crisis, outputcut is not big enough to reverse the situation of surplus supply, said market analysts here, adding that it is hard to improve aluminium price in a short period. Currently, the whole aluminium industry is losing money
Colin Bennett

Global Innovation Index 2013 - 0 views

www.globalinnovationindex.org/content.aspx

trends copper

shared by Colin Bennett on 08 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Despite the economic crisis, innovation is alive and well. Research and development spending levels are surpassing 2008 levels in most countries and successful local hubs are thriving. A group of dynamic middle- and low-income countries – including China, Costa Rica, India, and Senegal - are outpacing their peers, but haven’t broken into the top of the GII 2013 leader board
James Wright

US - Southwire: US residential construction industry has bottomed-out, signs of weak re... - 0 views

www.4-traders.com/...p-Stories-Of-The-Day--14334136

copper building wire Southwire construction US recovery

shared by James Wright on 12 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • James Wright on 12 Jun 12
     
    Southwire Co. Inc., a US cablemaker with a focus on building wire production, said that the US residential construction industry has bottomed-out after near-continuous contraction since being heavily impacted by the global economic crisis in late-2008. The company said that it is now necessary to use statistics on housing area under construction in order to analyse and pre-empt demand as government figures on housing starts cause an overestimation of the strength of the recovery in wire and cable demand. This is due to homebuilders more frequently electing to construct smaller homes, requiring less wire and cable than average-sized homes.
Colin Bennett

Global Wind Power Market Declined 20% From 2012 to 2013 - 1 views

www.navigantresearch.com/...d-20-percent-from-2012-to-2013

trends copper sustainable energy renewables

shared by Colin Bennett on 02 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • “The market decline in 2013 was not unexpected,” says Feng Zhao, research director with Navigant Research.  “The aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis still continues to weigh heavily – particularly on some of the European markets that underpin the industry. The U.S. market decline, triggered by lack of policy consistency and the delay in renewing the tax credits which have traditionally stimulated investment, was also a major contributing factor for the wind market depression last year.”
  • Colin Bennett on 02 Apr 14
     
    Demand impact
Colin Bennett

Copper markets stronger than for some time - 0 views

www.mineweb.com/...page36

trends copper FMI

shared by Colin Bennett on 22 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold's optimism about copper and molybdenum markets has prompted the company to undertake several major development projects including re-starts of mines shuttered or projects shelved since 2008 due to the global economic crisis.
James Wright

. - 0 views

www.factiva.com

shared by James Wright on 13 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Panos Kotseras on 13 Oct 08
     
    According to CRU's forecasts presented at the 9th World Copper Conference in Santiago, global copper consumption in 2009 is expected to fall by 2 to 3 million tonnes. This represents a 15-20% y-o-y plunge compared with 2008. The severe contraction is attributed to the global economic crisis and the freefall that many industries, such as the automotive sector, have experienced. In the first two months of 2009 total consumption of copper and copper alloy semis declined by 32% y-o-y, while that of copper wire and wirerod fell by 25% y-o-y. In the same period, insulated wire and cable decreased by 30%.
1 - 14 of 14
Showing 20▼ items per page