News

March 06, 2010

That Was The Week That Was … In London

By John Taylor

London's miners enjoyed their best week in terms of stock performance since the start of the year. The FTSE 100 miners gained an average of 10.8 per cent, while the mid and small cap companies ended up 6.5 per cent.

The catalyst for the upward move was the massive earthquake in Chile, which led to concerns about the impact on that country's copper mining industry. As it turned out, the impact on the mines was minimal, with most operations completely unaffected. However, the damage to power transmission and transport systems was in places severe, and some smelting capacity was also affected. For the first time since the middle of last year there were significant drawdowns of copper from LME warehouse...