Source: Wall Street Journal                          Date: 05 October, 2011

Investor worries and a reduction in construction projects planned for the year are hitting copper prices hard. Copper futures fell three days in a row last week, resulting in the largest quarterly decline since the 2008 financial crisis. Copper is a major export from Mongolia to China.Copper peaked at record highs in July, but has taken a slow 25 percent plunge since then. Some investors feared that the debt crisis in Europe would curb demand in base metals because they are so closely tied to growth. The most actively traded copper contract for December fell 2.9 percent to USD 3.152 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.Last week HSBC released a new estimate of China's manufacturing activity for September with slightly higher figures that its preliminary estimate. However, it still showed negative growth for a third consecutive month. A slowdown in China's industrial sector has put the squeeze on the copper market. China accounted for 40 percent of the world' copper consumption last year. In the United States, a small drop in personal income does not bode well construction projects.Barclays Capital reduced its copper price projects in light of the unexpected weakness in economic activity for this second of this year and 2012. Barclays Analysts predicted copper prices on the London Metal Exchange (LME) to average at about USD 3.62 a pound from USD 5.44 a pound for the fourth quarter of this year.