Source of Base Metal Charts

Until about 12 months ago you could download daily price and stocks data for base metals. Sadly the LME has gone commercial and you now have to pay for it through one of their intermediaries. Fortunately Kitco and others offer daily prices and historical charts which effectively does the job for you. I would however argue that the charts are not as accurate as the trading platform charts.

The historical charts can be accessed at:
1. Copper: See www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical.html
2. Zinc: See www.kitcometals.com/charts/zinc_historical.html
3. Nickel: www.kitcometals.com/charts/nickel_historical.html
4. Lead: www.kitcometals.com/charts/lead_historical.html
5. Aluminium: See www.kitcometals.com/charts/aluminum_historical.html
6. Tin: See ???
In the precious metals we have
7. Gold: See www.kitco.com/charts/techcharts_gold.html
8. Silver: See www.kitco.com/charts/techcharts_silver.html
9. Palladium: See www.kitco.com/charts/techcharts_palladium.html
10. Platinum: See www.kitco.com/charts/techcharts_platinum.html
11. Rhodium: See www.kitco.com/charts/historicalrhodium.html

These are the traded metals where there is a high level of price discovery or disclosure. There are of course alot of other where price information is not so transparent because these metals prices are concealed by confidential commercial agreements between producers and end users. The reason for this is that these markets are illiquid. Another problem is that the metals are often sold as ores or metal concentrates with widely variable concentrations, as well as price bonuses (for precious by-products) and penalties (for deleterious contaminants). For this reason its difficult to reach a standard price for these commodities because every refinery has a different pricing policy to achieve competitive advantage. These metals include:
12. Zircon:
13: Niobium:
14. Tantalum: See www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/Charts/tantalite_charts.html?weight=lb (before 2006) and http://metalsplace.com/prices/?a=14&grt=6 since.
15. Molybdenum: See www.adanacmoly.com/adanac_stock.php
16. Manganese: See www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/Charts/mn_ferro_charts.html?weight=lb (before 2006)
17. Cobalt: See ??
18. Magnesium: See http://metalsplace.com/prices/
19. Chrome: See ??
20. Antimony: See ??
21: Bismuth: See ??
22. Tungsten: See http://metalsplace.com/prices/?a=4&grt=5
23. Mercury: See ??
24. Vanadium: See ??
25. Cadmium: see www.asianmetal.com/Metal_News/index_product63_en.asp or http://metalsplace.com/prices/?a=15&grt=6
26. Iron ore: See http://metalsplace.com/prices/

No other metal not listed here is sold as a discrete commodity because they dont occur in isolation. Even some of the commodities above are seldom mined as a discrete commodity. eg. Cobalt is usually a by-product of nickel mining, bismuth is often a by-product of tin mining, antimony is often associated with gold. These metal combinations might simply be liberated by physical crushing, but often they require more expensive chemical separation processes that directly impact on the value of ores, thus making price determination less transparent.

Finally we have the energy-based commodities:
25. Petroleum:
26. Natural Gas:
27. Uranium (yellowcake): See www.uxc.com/review/uxc_g_price.html or in constant dollar terms www.uxc.com/review/uxc_g_hist-price.html
28. Thorium: See http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/metal_prices/

Otherwise you can perform price queries at this site: www.metalprices.com/freesite/historical/price-query.asp. See the US Geological Survey for more more info on commodities: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/metal_prices and www.crbtrader.com/fund/articles/default.asp. Here are a few other places for metal price charts - http://www.mineralstox.com/.