Brian Hicks, co-manager of our Global Resources Fund (PSPFX), is in London this week for the London Metal Exchangersquo;s 2009 Metals Seminar, which kicked off the annual LME Week gathering of leading commodities analysts from around the world. Here are Brianrsquo;s notes from the seminar: Danny Quah, professor at the London School of Economics, gave a compelling presentation that centered on China and the global recovery.nbsp; His main theme focused on the global economys shifting center of gravity, which has been steadily moving eastward to China over the past decade.nbsp;nbsp; He also mentioned that China isnt dependent upon U.S. consumption to create growth ndash; that notion is an old paradigm from the 1970s. Exports to the U.S. only make up approximately 15 percent of total exports, versus the 40 percent of total exports going to Southeast Asia.nbsp; Michael Jansen, director of commodities at JP Morgan, is one of a few who see ...

The base metals were mostly in the green on Monday. Copper turned in a second strong day in a row, rising from the pre-dawn hours to the noon hour, before tapering off to finish at $1.5404/lb., up 15 cents.

Nickel was erratic, but with a slight down bias, closing at $5.0583/lb., down just under 10 cents. Zinc moved up modestly, ending at $0.5209/lb., up a tenth of a cent. Aluminum had a good day, adding more than a penny and a third, to $0.6119/lb., while lead tacked on less than a penny and a quarter, at $0.5241/lb.

Analysts attributed copper’s strong day to an extension of the short-covering rally begun late last week, as well as the surprising existing home sales data.

“There’s some bullishness coming back to commodities and copper is following that trend,” said Donald Selkin, of National Securities Corp. in New York. “People felt that the economy is going

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