bhp dowm 9 percent in us, page-5

gold has been smashed down to 793. Everything is down. The hedge funds will go to town shorting.

Marc Faber has me worried;

``We peaked out,'' said Marc Faber, who forecast in June that raw materials would start to fall. ``We'll have to see whether it's a short-term peak or a long-term peak.''

Slower consumption in the U.S., the world's largest user of oil, would hurt manufacturing countries that are emerging economies, Faber said today from Bangkok in a Blooomberg Television interview. The U.S. is second to China in terms of industrial-metals consumption.

Crude oil for October delivery fell as low as $105.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, 8.7 percent less than on Aug. 29. Today's trading is combined with yesterday's for settlement purposes because of the Labor Day holiday in the U.S.