THIS ONE ISN'T COVERED IN THE LITTLE RED BOOK:

Copper holds strong against China (Asia Times, 12/09/05)

China's reserve agency sold much less copper than planned in its fourth public auction on December 7, leading analysts to doubt the effectiveness of the agency's attempt to drive down the metal's price at a time when it is at a historical high in the London market. [...]

Observers say that China has attempted to reduce the price of copper in an effort to limit the potential losses stemming from the activities of alleged "rogue trader" Liu Qibing, who was said to have taken large "short" positions in copper earlier in the year in a belief that the price would soon fall. Liu is believed to be in police custody in China, but it remains unclear whether the government will honor his contracts, which come due December 21.

Honoring the contracts would require delivering large quantities of metal to London Metal Exchange warehouses by the contract date, and would produce large financial losses at the current market price; whereas not honoring them would have serious and unpredictable consequences, possibly limiting China's future ability to participate fully in global commodity markets.