Oct. 11 (MF Global) -- This market comment was written at 8:10 a.m. on October 10th, US east coast time...

LME thoughts from this past week: Each year, attending LME week gives us a welcome chance to meet some of our clients and assess what they are seeing in their respective businesses. Invariably, there is an overriding tone to the gathering, with people either being mostly bullish or bearish, but this is the first year where the general view has been one of general confusion. Even the outlook at the October 2008 event was far easier to read in that the credit crisis and the seizure in the credit markets cast a universally bearish pall on the gathering. This time around, participants were not necessarily rushing to such dire conclusions, as they were not seeing an implosion in metals demand or freezing of credit lines. Rather, what they are seeing is a slowing in demand – but a hesitant one at that –brought on mainly by the ongoing European debt crisis, a largely exogenous event that no one seems to know how to properly assess in terms of its ultimate impact.