Photo Gallery Copper Blues
Hedge funds and other major investors are always looking for new places to park their cash. Now copper is attracting the hot money, which has caused the price of the metal to fluctuate wildly. This photo shows a copper-processing company in Hettstedt, Germany.
The Chuquicamata mine complex in Chile: Six percent of all copper produced worldwide comes from the open pit mine. But the state-owned copper mining company CODELCO complains about the risks that the new price volatility brings.
Hamburg-based Aurubis is Europe's largest copper processor. Hedge funds and other major players "try to read the market before the others catch up," says Aurubis's Sven Müller-Thurau.
Speculators are the biggest enemies of the market, because they undermine its central mechanism, the efficient balancing of supply and demand.
