Gurus also bought into the rebounding steel sector with shares of Houston-based aluminum and steel processor Metals USA (amex: MLT - news - people ).
Worries about the impact of a coal strike in South Africa appear to be having an impact on platinum group metals, said Jim Steel, precious-metals analyst with HSBC.
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His company which distributes stainless steel and other metals and manufactures metal parts saw rising demand for its products due to increased consumer demand for dishwashers, washing machines and other major appliances.
James Steel, precious metals analyst at HSBC, said one positive sign for bullion prices is a recovery in the gold-implied lease rates to minus 0.30% from a year-to-date low of minus 0.57% on Dec. 6.
"With demand for steel and other metals from China likely to remain strong for the foreseeable future, even if it does cool from recent white-hot levels, we think RT offers excellent value, even as we concede that the stock price has already had a great run, " he says.
After the dot-com collapse in 2001, for example, his screens picked up a collection of steel companies such as Cleveland-Cliffs, Metals USA, Oregon Steel Mills and Quanex.
Compare the utility sectors I just mentioned above to the coal, non-ferrous metals and steel sectors at the bottom of the table.
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The data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that demand for refined metals, steel and other materials used for building remains subdued.
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For many years, zinc, which is used in galvanizing as an anti-corrosive in metals like steel, traded at about 50 cents a pound and was ignored.
The rise appears to be the result of traders continuing to factor in ongoing supply concerns rather than any fresh breaking news, said Jim Steel, precious-metals analyst with HSBC.
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The conventional wisdom on industrial metals like steel and iron is that companies operating in this space will see share price appreciation to the extent that China keeps booming.
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Metal-forming technologies are used to shape hard industrial metals like steel, iron and aluminum into the components that are needed to make everything from computers and iPads to cars and trucks.
Further, platinum could be deriving some support from the firmer tone in equities on ideas that softer U.S. economic data may prompt the Federal Reserve into undertaking more monetary accommodation, said Jim Steel, precious-metals analyst with HSBC.
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After the dot-com collapse in 2001, for example, his screens picked up a collection of steel companies such as Cleveland-Cliffs (nyse: CLF - news - people ), Metals USA, Oregon Steel Mills and Quanex (nyse: NX - news - people ).
Orders dropped for metals such as steel and aluminum, metal parts, electrical equipment and appliances, and defense aircraft.
And sometime in the year 2000, designer watches in a range of metals from stainless steel to platinum.
Many industries are displaying a split financial personality from airlines (Continental and Northwest), metals (Bethlehem Steel) and prisons (Correction Corp), to casinos (Trump Holdings) and telecoms (Level 3 Communications, Global Crossing, Colt Telecom).
Jim Steel, senior vice president and metals analyst with HSBC, said that an actual default is unlikely.
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The focus has been strictly on the situation in Europe, specifically regarding Greece and Italy, which have seen two prime ministers offer to resign amid the looming sovereign debt problems, said James Steel, senior vice president and metals analyst with HSBC.
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As our commodities team has highlighted, the intensity of use for some industrial metals such as copper and steel will decline markedly over the next few years.
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The ministers also prohibited the export to Iran of further materials relevant to the Iranian nuclear and ballistic programmes or to industries controlled by the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), including graphite, raw or semi-finished metals such as aluminium and steel, as well as software for integrating industrial processes.
The other significant industrial user is iron and steel production, though iron ore and various other metals used to make alloys are also significant costs.
In the materials group, Reliance Steel, one of the largest U.S. metals service centers, distributes a line of more than 100, 000 metal products, including carbon, alloy, stainless and specialty steel, aluminum, brass as well as copper products.
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For example, brass washers and other non-ferrous metals are placed between the chromoly frame and the stainless steel bolts to slow electrolysis.
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That's all good news for Commercial Metals (54, CMC) , which operates small steel mills, mostly in the South, that make the rebar needed in concrete.
Because aluminum and steel have different properties, engineers have to look at different ways to use the metals to get desired results.
It evolved over the decades beyond its stainless-steel, time-only-display origins into a family of watches in various metals and hosting the most extreme of complications.
"Steel mills anticipate stronger demand from real estate in the year ahead" said Graeme Train, metals analyst at Macquarie.
China's headlong growth has not only caused acute shortages of metals like copper and nickel (which is used, among other things, to make stainless steel and even types of glass).
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