BIR World Mirror on Non-Ferrous - August 2011

Holiday Period far from Humdrum

Summer is historically a particularly uninteresting time of the year in our business: users of our products often slow down or even close for maintenance; the telephones don’t ring as often as we might like; and it’s supposed to be a time of holidays and peaceful leisure.

Welcome to the world of 2011. The instability of financial and equities values has volatized metals markets, providing us with levels of stress usually reserved for busier periods. Each rumor, each piece of information (of which, alas, there is no scarcity) has a dramatic effect on our business and has a negative impact on our ability both to source and sell our goods.

As the world tries to sort out its financial jumble, no doubt we can look to the last quarter of the year for continued confusion on the part of our governments, our trading partners, and the markets with which we deal on a daily basis.

Robert Stein
Alter Trading (USA)
President of the Non-Ferrous Metal Division

Read the full market report in our members' area.