Hedge funds target exotic metals

By Daniel Magnowski - Analysis

TALLINN (Reuters) - Exotic metals such as cobalt, vanadium and molybdenum may be the next targets for investors in the world's overcrowded commodity markets, financiers and traders said this week.

"There are a lot more people in the metals business, and people are looking for unexplored, unsaturated markets," said Daniel McConvey of New York based commodity trading adviser Rossport Investments, which invests in the so-called minor metals.

Most of the multi-billion dollar investment in metals this decade has gone to copper, nickel and other key industrial commodities.

But the amount of money poured into these metals has made it harder for fund managers to make a return, so they are looking at other materials, says Keith Dunleavy, trader at London firm Stratton Metals.

He has sold cobalt to hedge funds, and he reckons they expect prices to rise well beyond their current 11-year highs above $30 per lb.

"They started getting into cobalt at $22 and $24. We started badgering them to take profit at $28 but they are not interested," he said.

"The funds do immaculate research, and they got the fundamentals of nickel correct," he said at a conference in Estonia hosted by the Minor Metals Trade Association.

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