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Show offer might tap still lower levels. Despite the "bargain" price offered of-fered the government, leading primary producers stated their base remained at 11' 2 cents to domestic consumers. Observers said the situation was hardly conducive con-ducive to new buying by private users of copper. Export trade came almost to a full stop and the price sagged to around 10' 4 cents. A few South American inquiries, filtered into the market and Japanese interests inter-ests made inquiries. COPPER PRICES ARE LOWERED NEW YORK, July 20 One of the largest producers of copper shocked the market out of its recent re-cent lethargy this week when the U. S. navy opened bids for 2,000,-000 2,000,-000 pounds of the red metal. The bids revealed a low price of 104 cents a pound by a producer pro-ducer (Kennecott) whose price to regular customers has been maintained main-tained at 112 cents since last February. The bid was below the current cur-rent market price. Competitive bidding for another anoth-er government contract later in the week showed that the same producer again offered to deliver copper at 10a4 cents. Another producer pro-ducer bid 10.79 cents. Cut Prices Net result was a cut in the custom cus-tom smelter price to 10 5-8 cents a pound, against 10 7-8 cents prevailing pre-vailing a week ago. In the outside, out-side, or resale, market the price dropped to 10.60 and there was talk in the trade that a firm |