Copper has long been called the "metal with the PhD" or the "smart" metal because of its apparent ability to predict changes in the economy based on metal demand and pricing. Copper is used in many industrial capacities, but especially in piping in residential and commercial construction.

On Mar 6, we discussed the signals copper was sending about the status of the global economic recovery as metal prices were soaring but the stock market was not in a blog post called Dr. Copper Sends Signals.

Back in March, copper and copper stocks were behaving differently from the rest of the market. Copper mining stocks hit their lows in November and then roared from there. They were not hitting new lows in March like the rest of the overall stock market.

Copper was also on a tear at that time, hitting a 3-month high on Mar 6.

Copper prices and

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /br /The Russian ruble strengthened the most in more than three months against the dollar yesterday (gaining 1.7 percent to 32.2247 per dollar at one point) as oil rebounded above $60 a barrel and OAO Sberbank reported better-than-expected earnings. Sberbank shares jumped 5.1 percent after first-quarter net income turned out to be above analyst estimates. But the rise was also helped by the fact that Russia’s central bank spent approximately $2 billion from reserves to try to stop the ruble from falling yesterday, taking central bank reserve spending over the two working days since they lowered interest rates half a percantage point on Friday to around $4 billion, a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchiveamp;sid=aTqgrOY1vdEo"according to reports in the newspaper Kommersant/a.br /br /Russia’s central bank cut its main interest rates for the fourth time in less than three months at the end of last week after the government estimated the ...

In the face of global chaos, Israeli real estate prices still found a way to go up over 10% for 2008.  While most of the gains came in the first 3/4 of the year, prices have gone up even more in places like Petach Tikva and Modiin, both with yearly price gains of over 20%.

From Globes:

Tel Aviv suburb Petach Tikva led the price rise in 2008 with the average apartment climbing 22% in price to NIS 856,000 last year. In second place was Modi’in where the price of the average apartment rose 21% to NIS 1,031,00. The average apartment in Rishon Lezion and Yavne rose by 17% to NIS 926,000 and NIS 587,000 respectively. The average apartment in Givat Ze’ev recorded a 16% rise to NIS 852,000. Prices rose 15% in Ramat Gan

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Oil jumps 6 pct after fall to 4-year low last week… Saudi deepens some supply cuts ahead of OPEC meeting… Equity market bounce aids sentiment across commodities

Oil leapt 6 percent on Monday to more than $43 a barrel, as a rebound in global equity markets and further evidence of supply cuts by top exporter Saudi Arabia helped the market break a six-session losing streak.

Prices dropped 25 percent last week, their biggest weekly fall in nearly 18 years, depressed by the world economic outlook.

U.S. crude for January delivery was up $2.56 to $43.37 a barrel by 1003 GMT. It fell more than 6 percent on Friday to close at $40.81, its lowest since December 2004.

London Brent crude rose $2.56 to $42.30 a barrel.

“Prices are higher on account of a short-covering bounce from extremely oversold conditions,” Edward Meir, of futures broker

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