Increased Demand for Copper and Steel in US Industry Make Base Metals Worth a Second Look, Says New York’s Global Partners Securities

New stateside construction, which makes up a third of the United States’ steel and copper demand, is still slumping. But other metal-intensive markets are doing better than ever, moving several base and industrial metals into solid ‘buy’ territory. Demand for steel parts used in oil and gas drilling has seen real and sustainable growth due to the steady increase in drilling.

"We see oil and gas as a sector that will continue to be extremely strong for the next few years," said Global Partners Securities senior commodities analyst, Eric Halpern in a November 22nd memo. “As such, while traditional safe havens like gold may fluctuate wildly in value, we predict steady, if modest, growth from more common metals, including steel, copper and, to a somewhat lesser degree, zinc. While many of these metals (particularly copper) depend largely on Chinese consumption, growth in U.S. niche markets has certainly bolstered these commodities’ long-term prospects.

Increased demand from the transportation industry is also a good sign for metal manufacturers. Currently, the American auto industry is on pace to increase production by 9 percent over last year’s output. Robust production of commercial trucks, railway equipment and large shipping vessels add to increasingly high demand for steel and other base metals. Shipping and railway equipment, alone, saw an increase in demand of almost fourteen percent, this September, alone. “Between the domestic oil and transportation industries, there is ample reason to have confidence in steel’s continued growth. Copper, also, has a lot of domestic backing, to go along with its continued foreign demand”, said Halpern.

While stateside demand for copper has dropped by over 30 percent from its ten year high, due primarily to consumers substituting cheaper materials when copper prices surged, Halpern believes that this trend has run its course and is predicting an increase in domestic copper consumption of well over three percent for the 2011 fiscal year, with even more growth to come in 2012. “While a substantial portion of industrial piping has already switched to plastic, we at Global Partners Securities believe that that trend has finally run its course. Copper’s superior durability for piping, along with its unparalleled conductivity for use in electronics makes it an irreplaceable necessity for many robust industries, including the mobile phone and mobile computing sectors”. Demand is also steady for a wide range of copper alloys, where no substitutes exist for their unique characteristics. “There is excellent, and growing, demand for copper and copper alloys in domestic industries such as green energy, engineering, aviation and the aforementioned oil and natural gas extraction. A large portion of the current market woes are more based on emotional response than the facts on the ground. America’s economy is slowly building, and we feel that now is the time to take a second look at base and industrial metals while they can still be obtained at artificially deflated prices.”

Global Partners Securities is a full service investment firm based in New York City. They offer a full range of financial services, including personal and corporate investment, retirement planning and financing for qualified entrepreneurs.

Global Partners Securities
1123 Broadway,
Suite 3002,
New York,
NY 10010, USA

Phone: 1-646-213-2846
Fax: 1-646-607-9244

This release was published on openPR.