lead and copper prices slowly coming down

[catboat]

See chart on link for lead and copper prices. Lead is coming down, now at ~ 1.28 $/lb, and copper is coming down, now at $2.92.

http://www.infomine.com/Investment/HistoricalCharts/ShowCharts.asp?c=Lead

Still not as low as it was 2 years ago, but I like the trend. Hope it is still the trend in the months ahead.

[Whaump 'em]

Magic "8" ball says "not likely".

[randyrat]

Small market adjustment, although the largest adjustment in a while. Could be from industry they may be letting their stock piles/warehouse inventories adjust down for year end inventory reporting, that intern would lower demand and price. For how long this will last-God knows only. Now that the price is going down they/industry have to weigh cheaper lead vs cost of inventory,along with an election year comming on,oil prices up and down, housing slumped,economy going good, lots of snow/cold this year already,drought in some parts.Well you got the idea...

[38 Super Auto]

One factor that is pressuring metal prices is hybrid / electric vehicles. The electric motors require copper and batteries are consuming nickel.

I know a lot of folks like the hybrid concept for vehicles, so I expect there to be continuing pressure on copper prices. I don't understand all the factors driving lead prices up.

Here's a snippet from a usgs report for 2006.
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lead/lead_mcs07.pdf

[The lead-acid battery industry continued to be the principal user of lead, accounting for 88% of the reported U.S. lead consumption for 2006. Lead acid batteries were primarily used as starting-lighting-ignition (SLI) batteries for automobiles and trucks. Lead-acid batteries were also used as industrial-type batteries for uninterruptible power-supply equipment for computer and telecommunications networks and hospitals; for load-leveling equipment for commercial electrical power system; and as traction batteries used in airline ground equipment, industrial forklifts, mining vehicles, golf carts, etc. About 9% of lead was used in ammunition; casting material; sheets (including radiation shielding), pipes, traps and extruded products; cable covering, caulking lead, and building construction; solder; and oxides for glass, ceramics, pigments, and chemicals. The balance was used in ballast and counter weights.

About 1.15 million tons of secondary lead was produced, an amount equivalent to 74% of reported domestic lead consumption. Nearly all of it was recovered from old (post-consumer) scrap.]

[catboat]

Lead is down under $1.20 /lb. (~ $1.18 / lb)

Was up to $1.80 / lb two months ago. I wonder if it will be under $1.00 /lb by Jan 1 2008?

[crowbeaner]

Maybe it's time to drain the old mine at Bonne Terre MO and start digging some fresh stuff out of the ground!

[9mmcast]

You are looking at the short term projections for 1 month and 3 month. This is merely a camera shot of what is currently happening in the lead markets. To obtain a realistic view of what is to come, look at the 6 month and greater graphs - the trend lines are progressing in the positive direction (increased prices). Lead will not be coming down in price for a very long time to come. Just call a heavy metals supplier and ask for a quote for bullet metal - then call in 1 month for the same quote - the price will either be the same or more.


See chart on link for lead and copper prices. Lead is coming down, now at ~ 1.28 $/lb, and copper is coming down, now at $2.92.

http://www.infomine.com/Investment/HistoricalCharts/ShowCharts.asp?c=Lead

Still not as low as it was 2 years ago, but I like the trend. Hope it is still the trend in the months ahead.

[AZ Pete]

Hope you are right. Lead shot was $49 a bag this week at Sportsman's Warehouse. Glad I bought a bunch for $24 last year..thought that was too high, but the price was goin' up.

Maybe this is wishful thinking, but my experience is that metal prices go up, mines go into business (copper mines here in AZ). the market gets saturated, the price drops and the mines close. We'll see.

[hotwheelz]

Are the prices you guys posting on pure lead? I can get ww from the local scrap yard for .60 a lb.

[JSH]

Even if it does go down to what it was before this all hit the fan, I doubt any of us will see it.
I remember quite a few years back when the hog market went to crap and a lot of guys lost their A$$. You could buy a 240 pound hog at the sale barn for $20. You sure didn't see it at the grocery store.
I still laugh at one of the guys that used to come through the COOP I worked at then. He had taken some old cows to the sale. He was always looking for a bargain. He stopped back by and asked me if I wanted a couple of pigs, $2 each as he had just bought 12 of them for $12. I laughed said nope, but I went and looked any way. There wasn't 12 in the trailer, more like 35 or so. Found out later that guys were just dropping them off at the sale barn to get rid of them. If you weren't watching, guys loading you would throw a few "bonus" hogs in with what ever else you were loading.
Want another example? Remember the deal on antifreeze around that same time? Ever see the price come back down?
I hate to be "chicken little" the sky is falling. But, remember a few years back when they were going to tax the crap out of our componenets, or some such threat?
Why give the taxes back to the system, why not just raise the price of all this stuff across the board for a more "personal" gain?
"what goes up, must come down" does not always apply.
Jeff

[Ed K]

I had not looked at lead prices for a few months. The prices are falling quite dramatically. Looking at this 5 year chart you can plainly see the bubble. You can also see that the 2 most recent of the series of 3 trendlines (in blue) have been broken which is great for us WW/scrap buyers (never mind you guys still getting them for free :roll: ). No, price may never make it back to the lowest line but I'm hopeful it breaks the psychological $1 mark and finds support at $0.80 or even $0.65 (approx black lines). When at these prices on the way up I was buying WWs for $0.15/lb and since I know of no free sources this was better for me than driving all around burning gas looking for free WWs/offering doughnuts, beer, etc.

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee153/mvesk/spot-lead-5y.jpg

[lathesmith]

I read an article yesterday where the prognosticators were saying that China has taken a temporary break from copper buying, and they are increasing their domestic lead production as well. They said the down trend for copper was probably temporary, but expect lead to stay well below its 2007 highs.
lathesmith

[pa_guns]

Hi

When you consider what the US dollar has been doing in the last few months, the price drop is even more amazing.

Bob

[lathesmith]

The crash of the dollar now having an adverse impact on nearly all import prices, and most noticably so on commodities. Oil is hovering around 93 dollars a barrel; but that same barrel is bought with around 63 euros. Considering the dollar was at parity or above with the euro around 2000, that is a huge drop in value by our greenback. I expect this to get no better; the fed is slashing interest rates just as inflation is really heating up, and this will send the dollar even lower. All the fed cares about is propping up short-term equity prices; people are going to be rudely surprised to discover the central bank couldn't care less about inflation. They've put on a good act, but I think the game is just about up.
lathesmith

[Ed K]

About 18 months back lead was 50-60 cents and I bought WWs at the local scrapyard $0.15/lb. Wondering if I may get another chance to do that?

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee153/mvesk/spotlead5y.gif

[idahoron]

I am thinking that if the anti crowd gets their way and they make lead illegal to use in anything including bullets. The price of lead will fall, but we won't be able to use it. I hope that does not happen. Ron

[mto7464]

Ron, we will just have to find places to shoot were no one will check us. Sure hope this doesn't happen.

[jgh4445]

Here's whats happening in my neck of the woods.
Interstate Battery Company is dropping off these cute little buckets at all the tire dealerships and garages. They leave 4 to six at each stop. They are labled "Wheel Weights Only". They give the dealership a $20 credit for each full one they pick up on their route ( the Interstate Battery Salesman). Takes about 6 to seven of these buckets to fill up a regular 5 gallon bucket. Do the math. That puts a 5 gal bucket of WW at $120 to $140. Sucks.

[andremajic]

I'm still getting mine for free. I don't know for how long, but I'm stocking up while I can.

Currently have about 300 lbs of ingots in the garage.

Andy.

[Ed K]

I am thinking that if the anti crowd gets their way and they make lead illegal to use in anything including bullets. The price of lead will fall, but we won't be able to use it. I hope that does not happen. Ron

I don't think bullets count for very much in the worldwide picture of lead consumption but I don't have any facts on that. There are a lot of industrial applications for lead. Restrictions on use in Europe and to a lesser degree here in the US sure haven't put a damper in the prices.

Recycling WWs seems to be catching on in a big way here in the US (now that lead is worth more than a few pennies/lb). From what I've gathered from this forum getting free WWs seems to be a regional thing. I have had very little luck doing that - mostly just burn time and gas trying. I'm fairly new to casting but at least had the foresight to by a bunch of WWs from my scrap dealer almost 2 years ago for $0.15/lb. At that price a bullet is still pretty cheap and the price of gas to hop from tire shop to tire shop sure isn't getting any cheaper. If I have the opportunity to buy more at anything near that price I will likely buy more. Kudos to you guys still getting them for free.

[TexasJeff]

I am thinking that if the anti crowd gets their way and they make lead illegal to use in anything including bullets. The price of lead will fall, but we won't be able to use it. I hope that does not happen. Ron

I've never given a damn what the anti-Constitution crowd thinks, says, does or even passes into law.

Where you live, where I live . . . . plenty of places to go and shoot--and live--where the anti's wouldn't dare tread. Those pansy-asses can't get too far away from the interstates and Starbucks.

Jeff

[Tom Herman]

Maybe it's time to drain the old mine at Bonne Terre MO and start digging some fresh stuff out of the ground!

We need to be drilling for oil wherever it is found, onshore and off...

Happy Shootin'! -Tom

[Huntducks]

lead @ .88 lb on it way to .65:mrgreen:

[dwtim]

Wow. They were buying it at 1.05/lb a few weeks ago. Copper dropped another twenty cents per pound, too. Look at zinc: 1.20 to 0.89 in four months.

So we have the theory of Index Speculator distortions of the future markets... What's causing this drop? The value of the dollar is still dropping.

...you guys dumping mass quantities of wheel weights on the market to lower demand?

[idahoron]

I saw in the newspaper that some food pantries are going to stop taking deer and elk meat donated by hunters. They say the level of lead is too high. They are saying we can't give starving people wild game because there is an extremely small chance they might find a trace of lead in the meat. What is worse starving to death or a slim chance of having lead?
There was a meeting here in Idaho about two weeks ago. Some save the hawk group wants all lead outlawed because hawks might eat a fragment of a bullet. I hate to say it but I am scared of these no lead groups. Ron

[idahoron]

Here is a piece out of a local paper that I was talking about. Ron

By JOHN MILLER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

BOISE, Idaho -- The potential risk of lead poisoning from high-velocity bullets, whether to carrion-eating condors in the Grand Canyon or to food bank patrons in the Midwest, is the subject of a scientific conference next week.

The issue has been heightened since North Dakota and Minnesota officials instructed food bank operators to clear their shelves of venison donated by hunters this year.

The move raised complaints from Safari Club International of Somerset, N.J., whose members gave about 316,000 pounds of venison to the needy last year under the group's Sportsmen Against Hunger program, and Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry of Williamsport, Md., which donates more than 282,000 pounds of venison in 27 states annually.

The four-day gathering that begins Monday at Boise State University includes more than 50 presentations on issues ranging from lead poisoning among subsistence hunting Inuits in Alaska and Russia, lead levels in ravens in southern Yellowstone National Park, lead found in swans in Western Washington state and the politics of nontoxic ammunition.

"You're collecting a huge weight of evidence to infer or perhaps even prove there's a serious health risk, certainly to wildlife, but perhaps even to humans," said Rick Watson, vice president of The Peregrine Fund in Boise, a raptor recovery center that is sponsoring the conference.

"That should promote if not actual remediation of the problem, then further research on where there are gaps in that knowledge," Watson said Friday.

Lead poisoning has been linked to learning disabilities, behavioral problems and, at very high levels, seizures, coma, and death.

Watson said his group realized there might be a connection between lead poisoning, bullets, venison and humans after 1996, the year it began reintroducing rare California condors in northern Arizona. As many as 60 now soar over the Grand Canyon and southern Utah, but researchers and the Arizona Game and Fish Department found the scavengers were ailing from lead poisoning after eating hunter-killed deer and leftover gut piles.

In 2006, five condors died of lead poisoning and 90 percent of the rest had signs of exposure.

To learn more, Peregrine Fund researchers killed two deer with high-velocity lead ammunition and found that the bullets fragmented on impact, leaving the animals' flesh riddled with hundreds of microscopic lead particles.

"In the process of doing that study, we didn't want to waste the deer meat we had shot, so we had it processed," Watson said. "We thought, 'For interest's sake, let's take a look at some of these package to see if there was any lead' - and there was."

Skeptical, Dr. William Cornatzer of Bismarck, N.D., a physician, hunter and Peregrine Fund board member, used a CT scan to examine about 100 packets of venison from local food giveaway programs and found 60 percent had multiple lead fragments.

"There isn't much to argue," Cornatzer said. "It shows there is this toxic metal in our ground venison that we hunters have been eating for the last 50 years."

While no cases of lead poisoning from venison had been reported, his research helped lead to the warning to food banks in North Dakota in March. Days later, Minnesota followed suit after separate tests in that state.

Safari Club officials have contend there is no scientific basis for abandoning thousands of pounds of meat that otherwise would go to poor families at a time of rapidly escalating food costs.

Gene Rurka, chairman of the group's humanitarian efforts, said dumping venison on the basis of a few anecdotal studies was premature.

"I just can't imagine there's that kind of lead intrusion in the meat," Rurka said. "If it's a health issue, certainly, it's a concern, but to go out and say there's one guy who took a sampling of meat, and to use that across the entire program, it is totally unfair."

Watson said such skepticism is a key reason for the conference.

Among other reports, his group plans to release preliminary findings of a continuing study of packaged venison from 30 deer killed by researchers with high-velocity ammo and processed by 30 butchers in Wyoming. Watson, one of the authors, said the findings so far mirror the conclusions in North Dakota and Minnesota.

"We've effectively demonstrated that lead does get into venison, both hamburger and steaks," he said. "It's at levels sufficently high enough to be a concern to people who get those packets. We don't know what risk, but we know they are at some risk."

[Beaverhunter2]

As the doctor said, "...there is this toxic metal in our ground venison that we hunters have been eating for the last 50 years."

This must be why all successful hunters die young of lead poisoning. I guess it's a good thing I can't shoot very well! I'm almost 44 and I'd only have a few years left!

(These people really can't be that stupid, can they?!?!?)

John

[725]

It's just more anti-gun, anti-freedom do gooders at work. Today it's the words of lead in the food, CO-2 poisions from cow farts, or some equally moronic BS. They use the word of the day crisis to scare the non-thinkers into rolling over like the sheep they are.

[floodgate]

Reminds me of a scare article I ran across many years ago, pointing out that common salt is made by mixing a chemical that bursts into flame on contact with water (sodium) with the major poison gas used in World War I (chlorine). Organic (sea) salt is OK, since it contains no chemicals.

flubgate

[Leadforbrains]

I agree with 725. Just more anti-gun, anti-hunting metrosexual B.S. If they can't neuter us and turn us into pansies outright they will continue to try to back door us in other ways.

[Leadforbrains]

The gooberment can't even win the war on drugs. How in the hell these weenies can even think they can try stopping me from rolling a deer over with a lead Boolit is beyond me.

[idahoron]

When this first turned up in Kalifornika, I thought never in Idaho. One of these meetings was at our local Fish and Game office.
I am setting on about 600 pounds of lead. If they want it, I will give it to them. I will send it air mail about 385 to 475 grains at a time. Ron

[Ed K]

Spot lead is trying to crack the $0.70 threshold - looking good!

[sniper]

[QUOTE=idahoron;347056]Lead poisoning has been linked to learning disabilities, behavioral problems and, at very high levels, seizures, coma, and death.QUOTE]

Yes, and small amounts of human saliva, swallowed over along period of time, will result in cancer!:roll:

As always, there is someone ready to shout "The Sky is Falling!" And the enviro wackos will chant along in unison, just as long as it suits their agenda.

No doubt lead is a material that doesn't do any good to the human body, especially when introduced above 800 fps. :mrgreen:

My dad was a painter. When I was little, I used to play with his red and whte lead, and later, when we went fishing, we all crimped split shot sinkers onto our line by biting them.

In high school chemistry, we used to roll Mercury around in our bare hands, AND, we drank out of the garden hose!;) As a teen ager, I strained what seemed like TONS of chicken**** through a hardware coth screen!

I do have a slight learning disability, no doubt caused by my earlier exposure to all those toxic and hazardous substances. (?)

But, in the 15 years before I retired, I successfully administered about $ 1 Million in public funds annually. Just imagine what I might have been able to do, if I had all of my faculties intact!

Would I have been somehow faster, smarter, better, if I had not been exposed to those nasty elements? Maybe; but then again.... who knows?

All is O.K., though. My shrink says I can reload Cast Bolits... if I wash my hands well before I suck my thumb.:mrgreen:

[The Dove]

LFB,

Metrosexual B.S. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That's good!!! and I gotta use it.
Thanks

The Dove

[JIMinPHX]

Once the Olympics are over, I think that lead & other metals are going to jump back up again. China shut down a lot of their industry for a few months to let the smoke clear so that they can put on a good show while the world is watching. After that, they'll be back to full tilt again sucking up every resource in sight. If you see lead at a good price, grab it now while you can.

[Bad Water Bill]

I wonder how they can explain how my grandfather lived to the age of 93. All of his life he lived on the game he shot starting with a round ball coal burner. Around 1903-5 he bought a Win 94 rifle and used it till 1967 when he gave it to my dad. He drove from above Placerville Ca to Chicago in a VW Beetle . Not bad for an 88 year old who had been lead pisonin himself all those years. Oh yes he was also still carrying 9 lead slugs from his time with the Texas rangers almost 50 years before his untimely death. I wonder if he had stayed away from that NASTY lead if he would still be around telling stories and creating babys.

[DLCTEX]

The antis have no qualms about using false "science" to further their wacko views because when they are proven flase or even fraudulent the leftwing media will not, or will under report( if forced to report at all), that they were wrong. Then they will continue to use the "science" as fact as if it were never debunked. The leftist media has and will continue to be America's greatest enemy, IMHO. DALE

[Firebird]

Saw a report on TV last week that China has bought a mountain in Chile and will be developing a copper mine that basically will eventually remove the mountain to China for processing. Cost them 3 billion, the expected copper at todays prices will be worth over 100 billion when they finish mining the mountain. Made me wonder how long and for how much western mining companies had been trying to get access to that mountain of copper ore.
At least this should reduce the amount of copper that China is buying on the open market so the price should fall.