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Show COPPER BUYING jSOOOD (From the Mining Journal), l'hoenlx, ArU.( April 9. The copper cop-per buying movement gained second wind last week when, after 3 weeks of good buying and one dull week, a spurt come from loreign sources, ' which was reflected in the domestic market and caused an unusual flur-ty. flur-ty. The result is that copper now stands at 14' cents, f. o. b. delivery points, and close to 14 cents, f. o. b. New York. Lead has also been ac tive, with the contract price advancing advanc-ing from 6.00 cents to 6.10 cents, and zinc has been quiet but with slightly stronger price 5.75 cents. The lead market has been sufficiently suffici-ently active to cause an advance in price generally. For fully a week before be-fore the advance came, there was some metal commanding a premium over the contract figure. Practically all classes of lead buyers were in the market. The fact that the world production of zinc for the last month broke all records for all time, . has not helped the zinc situation or given any confidence confi-dence in its improvement. It 13 a sensitive sen-sitive market, fluctuates within small ! .. .. . .. .. .t i umi's, uepenuing uion tne number o. sales and size of the lots. The world production of zir.c during February totaled 122,335 tons, which is on average of 421 S tons daily, a new ncord. During January trie dai :? average was lie!) ton:-,. There vx-b vx-b i n a steady incease in zinc produ? ti?n since July 1J27 and the average dtiiy rate during 1027 was 3910 tons, or about 300 tons less than the present pres-ent rate. The increase seems to be fairly general and not confined to auy one or group of countries. , .The- statlsUc lata on copper for March will be eagerly anticipated, as some high totals are expected, which will possibly influence the whole situation. sit-uation. It is generally believed that the total of export and domestic deliveries de-liveries will exceed 125,000 tons, and that there will be a large drop In the surplus stock. The buying of copper has been unusually un-usually heavy for delivery during the next three months' period, and it looks as though the consumers were now desirous of protecting theniselvc, against a price advance, which seems inevitable. The producers played wisely in not advancing the price during the last buying movement, and not making any advance until the buying wave r?end to be about completed. The sellers have now Fold all the metal they care to sell at the 14 1.S cent price and are s'ronsly holding for 11 cents. The copper producers have been very successful in maintaining a stable sta-ble copper market, during the past few weeks and in having carried forward for-ward t! eir program, in view of the continued dullness, and their success will undoubtedly bring buyers into line In taking care of their require-lenfs require-lenfs ahead of time and being sure of delivery. Although there has been an advance ad-vance in the domestic market price, there -ras been no advance ih the export ex-port price as yet, that price remaining remain-ing at 14V4 cents. The volume of buying buy-ing abroad and the fact that very Iti-tle Iti-tle copper remains in European warehouses ware-houses indicate that a foreign advance ad-vance of 1-8 cents may be expected. In spite of the fact that Germany is not expected to take as much copper cop-per ihls year as last, the start for 1928 has been good, with 18,265 tons monthly average imports so far, as against a monthly average of 17,704 tons last year and 10,100 tons monthly month-ly durln-g 1926. Great Britain has been importing 10,953 tons net monthly month-ly this year, as against 9,858 tons monthly during 1927,4 and 8,527 tona during 1926. Germany is also away up in lead, having net imports this year of 17,792 tons monthly as against 11,772 last year, and 6,340 tons during 1926. Great Britain is off this year with 19,391 tons,' as against 22,820 tons monthly net during 1927, and 21,060 tons during 1926. The copper situation can be regarded regard-ed as materially improved and travelling trav-elling forward to a further improvement improve-ment rapidly. The lead market is better, bet-ter, but with no sign of any great ad- vance, and the zinc market is decidedly decid-edly weak, even though it does get ' den bursts of enthusiasm, which temporarily tem-porarily strengthen the price a few ! cents. I . |