Silver ? Forget zinc and lead. Base metals are toast.
Does anyone know what's going on at Don Ramon ? I see Paramounts stock going into Rich's salary and nothing stopping him until it's gone. Does Rich have any responsibility to shareholders ? Can anybody grab him by his heuvos and give them a shake ?
There is no market for base metals for years. Hello, Rich ?
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TORONTO - Few Canadian resource industries fared well in what turned out to be a dismal year for commodities, but base metal miners were hit particularly hard as credit markets tightened, global demand slumped and prices for everything from zinc and copper to iron ore and aluminum plummeted.
And one analyst predicted some of Canada's big mining companies will go bankrupt before conditions start to improve.
"I think you'll have five bankruptcies before the second quarter (of 2009) ends, and some of them will be sizable entities," predicted Andrew Martyn, a vice-president at Toronto-based investment adviser Davis-Rea Ltd.
"The metals side is just on the edge of apocalyptic. It looks horrible."
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But base metal prices have slumped so much that it's virtually impossible for some companies to reduce costs enough to survive at this point. And Martyn said things will get far worse before they get better.
"Get ready for lower and get ready for longer," he said. "I think we're in real deep trouble here."
