Many of you will be aware that the prices of metals are blasting out of orbit given the heavy demand from the fast developing BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and last but not least China).

Copper is at (I believe) a 10 year high and reserves on markets are down to 3 weeks (normally 8 weeks) as a result of massive shortages, and Tin is at a 14 year high. Gold has rallied in the last few days and looks as if it will take out its recent high of approx $435/oz and Silver and Zinc, Lead, Aluminium and of course Platinum are also going ballistic. The consensus is that they all might have a long way to go. The question then is how to get stockmarket exposure to these metals.

I have Antofagusta as a copper play (tipped by Numis to hit 15 by December... currently 10.70) but annoyingly have not buy Monterrico (have I missed the boat). I have Oxus and POG as gold plays and Zox (Zinc). I have also been keeping an eye on Aquarius Platinum which had been falling, although I see it was up over 5% on Friday.

Does anybody know how to gain access to Silver, Tin, Lead and Alu plays via smaller companies (UK or US) or is it a case of having to go with majors such as Rio Tinto, Anglo American etc. All comments on metal shares welcome.
Regards

Couldn't find any silver stocks listed in the UK so bought some Silver covered warrant call options (giving 4X leverage). Could be an interesting white knuckle ride. At least this tracks the move in the underlying. I find that sometimes the gold price is going up and my gold mining stocks are going south.

Cheers
gk