The Chinese government last week looked likely to suffer massive losses following the collapse of large short positions in copper taken by a trader at its State Reserve Bureau (SRB).
The short position, reported to amount to over 200,000 tonnes on London Metal Exchange (LME) and Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) was believed to have been opened by Liu Qibing before going spectacularly wrong in the face of soaring copper prices.
According to FO Week's sister publication, Metal Bulletin, Liu had subsequently gone missing, with phone calls to his obile unanswered. Market speculation regarding his whereabouts ranged from suicide to jail to murder.
SRB insisted that it had enough copper...