theme of last Ann's, page-31

no wuckingfurries mate !

I am no expert on trends / trading / charts .......

I can understand supply - demand (just .....sometimes I run out of toes).......

as with the oil industry, we have a situation (where the price of the basic commodity is below the marginal cost of production)..... - whereby:

supply - demand = a number

inventory = a number

we, as outside punetrs" have absolutely NFI as to "how" the big producers "fund" their inventory (before it gets sold to end users) - so the inventory number has seen some "unusual" big changes (ie 3 or 4 bit additions on the LME, and a couple on the SHFE .....)

we also, as outside punters, have NFI abt what the big hedge funds / insto's are doing re using metals as collateral for other activities ........

we can only guess or infer from said numbers......

we DO KNOW that circa 130-150kT of supply has been removed from said market ......we know that demand is likely to continue o grow at 1-5% ......which implies a shortfall ......we know that some of this is being replaced by Fe-Ni out of Indo, and some by lateritic nickel from bothe the pines and indo (and recently by new cal...)

the question is "how" the inventories get used to "mask" this apparent shortfall......and how long it takes to get inventory down to "trigger points" .......(ie on the SHFE - if you are a end user - its still difficult to buy metal without changing the price, as most is held via warrant, and at present - one can buy/sell freely on the LME - with no chg in price!!!) .....

as I said - slow boat to china at present (see - I almost made a funny) .....

back to POS - itivity ......bring back TB !!!!!!!!!!!!!

rgds
V_H