Phantom Trader

Dealing with China has been less than smooth. First it's currency "manipulation" and lack of intellectual property protection, which have led US authorities looking to take some form of action - whether through its own countering actions via tariffs or through pressuring the WTO to take actions.

Now there's something else going on in China. It envolves a huge short copper position (in the hundreds of tonnes) by a trader named Liu Qibing, exept it's unknown wherther this individual actually exists or not. I'm not going to speculate here, but things smell rather fishy. Here's a link to a story on Asia Times Online that gives some possible explanations to this mystery phantom trader.