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By Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London:
We heard last week that an investor had been buying around 90% of the tin traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME), in the form of physical stocks and contracts.
Since early summer, the dominant position has caused the tin market on the LME to become "disorderly" and distorted prices, Reuters reported.
Rumors abounded but nobody knew for sure who the mystery buyer was. Then the revelation came: it was a UK-based commodity hedge fund called Ebullio Capital Management.
So now Ebullio, based in the modest location of Southend-on-Sea, is thought to be responsible for the rise in the metal's prices: tin is now at around $15,000 per tonne, whereas at the end of 2008, it was $9,700 .
Tin, a silvery-white metallic element, is used in many alloys. Due to its low toxicity, tin-plated metal is also used for food packaging, giving the name to tin cans, which are made mostly out of aluminium or tin-plated steel. Tin is the 49th most abundant element in the Earth's crust; it does not occur naturally by itself, and must be extracted from a base compound. World resources to meet the demand for tin are sufficient for many decades...................... To view our full article Click here
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