halle1@houxz.UUCP (J.HALLE) (04/03/84)
The advice given about copper - which I feel is poor - brings to mind an anecdote from a couple years ago. Right after the beginning of the Falklands conflict, I got a call from a Chicago commodities broker. (I must have mailed in a card at some point; I had no connection with him I could trace.) He tried to get me to buy copper, claiming that it was tremendously underpriced, about 70% of the production cost. With the fighting, demand would skyrocket and the price would go way up. I told him to send me info but I wasn't interested right then. I then proceeded to track it for the next several months, and still occasionally check. When he called it was selling at about 67. It dropped to 65, went up to 71 or 72 for a couple weeks, and then came back to the mid 60s. I have never seen it above the low 70s, and it was in the high 60s the last I checked. If I had bought at the lowest point and sold at the highest, I would have almost earned enough to pay his commission. Moral: Be very wary of inflated claims in commodities. Even if they are partially right, the commissions will kill you before you see anything. And the claims usually are mostly wrong.