Business: Free Copper

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For the first time in almost two years, free trading in copper was resumed this week on the Commodity Exchange in New York. It was a great relief to copper users, who hope that a free market will end the confusion in prices. Though the Government lifted price ceilings on domestic copper last March, it is keeping allocations on the metal until July 1. This has kept many onetime copper users out of the market and, incidentally, has resulted in a rise in the use of aluminum. Therefore, the Commodity Exchange was not ready to trade in copper futures until this week, when contracts could be made for delivery after allocations expire.

Furthermore, primary metal producers have refused to set future prices. They would sell only if the buyer agreed to pay the price that prevailed when he got his metal. Under the circumstances, fabricators were hard put to set prices on their finished products.

With the resumption of futures trading, fabricators not only get firm prices for future delivery, but they can also get a good idea of the trend in prices. Spot domestic copper has been selling for 30¢ a lb. since March. The first futures contracts indicated that traders thought the price would be down to 28¼¢ by July and by year's end down to 26½¢. Still a holdout in the world market is Chile, keeping its price at 35½¢ f.o.b. But it looks as if Chile will have to drop its prices too, especially since Britain plans to resume free trading in copper in August when it will start releasing metal from its 200,000-ton stockpile.