Mining stocks fell across the board on Thursday after gold fell sharply and copper fell below $10000 for the first time in nearly a month.
Us gold futures fell more than $40 an ounce, or 2%, to hit a low of $1866.70 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while copper fell more than 3% in afternoon trading to $4.429 a pound ($9765 a ton). Both metals sold heavily, with contracts equivalent to 2600 million gold ounces and changing hands of more than 3 billion pounds.
The price of iron ore remains good.
Gold stocks with the heaviest losses wiped out AngloGold Ashanti, Mountain, which rose strongly in most sectors in May, and Jintian fell nearly 5 per cent in New York. Leading producers Newmont and Barrick fell 2.2 per cent and 3.8 per cent respectively after recovering some of their losses in afternoon trading.
Copper stocks were also hit, with Freeport down 3.5 per cent, Southern Copper down 3.4 per cent and first Quantum down 4.3 per cent.
Among the major diversified stocks, Anglo American was the hardest hit, falling more than 3 per cent, but the iron ore troika: Rio Tinto, Vale and BHP Billiton limited their losses to less than 2 per cent in the afternoon. Glencore fell 2.7 per cent on Thursday, but it has risen 45 per cent so far this year to become the best performing company among diversified professions.
The Fortescue trading unit of pure iron ore in the United States escaped the Holocaust on Thursday, but it is one of the few stocks that have fallen so far this year.
