IKN

Take physic, pomp

Yes, Red Kite has taken a majority position in LME copper. So freakin’ what?

Due to the slow news week pre-FOMC, or the dearth of interesting things in the metals world, or the attempt to ignore just how shitty the mining stocks are right now, or something the world seems enrapt with the news that Red Kite has moved heavily into LME copper and now holds control over between 50% and 80% of total inventory. I’ve had the news sent to me by a goodly handful of people (which is appreciated, people) though it’s been notable that each sender has sent a different version from a different news org. It’s also notable that the constant line is something around, “Well we think this is important but darnit, we don’t know why, but fukkit let’s run a story anyway”. Typical is this report from Copper Investing News that begins this way:

“It’s unclear why a single buyer is holding such a large amount of the copper stocks in London Metal Exchange (LME) warehouses, but…”Stop. Right. There.

But. Nothing.
If you don’t know why, that’s fine. It’s unclear, we agree. But chattering class waste-o-time journalism being what it is you can’t stop there, so Copper Investing News then regales another 592 words (yup, counted them via a paste into Word and the function) on this and that and what theory and other theory, etc etc ad infinitum. That’s 592 words too many, C.I.N. ; if you don’t know say you don’t know then STFU, we out here have better things to do than read your script onanisms. Trimming toenails, for example.
When the news broke yesterday morning I sat back and thought of reasons as to why Red Kite might do such a thing, in about three minutes of vague reverie got to half a dozen reasonable explanations and then gave up. Overall, the main point we need to consider is that Red Kite is a) the world’s biggest copper trader and b) a hedge fund operation. Those two are the big clues, because there’s zero chance that taking such a position in the public pit is unrelated to its other deals, trades, business and operations. And as we don’t know what the internal trade-offs are for Red Kite and copper, there’s no point in trying to guess.
All that’s a long-winded way of saying that if you immediately jump to the conclusion that this Red Kite copper news is bullish for the metals price, you need to reconsider your overall aptitude towards trading on capital markets. And yeah that last bit was me putting it nicely, how did you guess?

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