COPPER: Brake Applied

Among his many roles, Franklin Roosevelt sometimes plays a sort of policeman, signaling stop & go to commodity prices. Year and a half ago he signaled stop with such success that prices broke the world around. Three weeks ago the “White House Spokesman” warned that certain commodity prices must not be allowed to run away. Copper, for example, should not be allowed to reach 18¢ again. Though copper has often been a runaway (in 1916 reaching an all-time high of 31.89¢), it got no higher than 17¢ last year, then dropped to 9¢ this summer.

Despite Policeman Roosevelt’s warning, favorable news kept the price bowling uphill. The Copper Institute’s September report showed that stocks on hand, both in the U. S. and abroad, were at the year’s low, consumption at the year’s high. Foreign orders for rearmament last month were 137,298 tons, highest ever. In the U. S., rearmament plans capped a business revival. And so by last week the domestic price had climbed to 11.25¢ a pound, the export price to 11.7¢.

In the matter of prices, international producers’ associations usually step on the accelerator rather than on the brake. But the three-year-old international copper cartel has learned better from the sad experiences of the older cartels. Fortnight ago the cartel permitted an increase in production from 95% to 105% of agreed tonnage. Despite this deterrent, prices continued to rise. Last week the cartel removed all restrictions on production, thus dumped a potential 30,000 tons per month more copper on the international market. This time the U. S. price pulled up short at 11.25¢, the export price fell to 11.15¢.