Rio Tinto is a world leader in finding, mining and processing the earths mineral resources. The Groups worldwide operations supply essential minerals and metals that help to meet global needs and contribute to improvements in living standards. Rio Tinto encourages strong local identities and has a devolved management philosophy, entrusting responsibility with accountability to the workplace. Major products include aluminium, copper, diamonds, energy products (coal and uranium), gold, industrial minerals (borax, titanium dioxide, salt, talc and zircon), and iron ore. The Groups activities span the world but are strongly represented in Australia and North America with significant businesses in South America, Asia, Europe and southern Africa. Rio Tinto comprises wholly owned subsidiaries (such as Borax, Comalco, Hamersley, Rio Tinto Coal Australia, Kennecott and Rio Tinto Iron & Titanium), partly owned subsidiaries (Coal & Allied and Palabora) and non-managed, (Escondida) and joint ventures (Grasberg) in which public shareholders, other companies or governments are partners.

            Red = 25 day moving average.           Green = 200 day moving average.

SALES PER ACTIVITY (Data as of 31/12/2005)

Iron:        29%
Coal:       19%
Copper     18%
Aluminum: 14.5%
Minerals:  12.5%
:              6%
Misc:        1%

From today's Times:

BLT to press ahead with RIO bid

Last para is of particular interest:
"Chinalco will continue to raise the pressure, however. Xiao Yaqing, its chairman, is this week due to meet Australian government officials in Sydney to brief them on his lightning share raid and seek approval to raise his stake further still. The visit will fuel speculation that Chinalco and its partner Alcoa, the American aluminium miner, may be laying the groundwork for a potential full takeover."

Written 14/04/08...

The rally in UK stocks appears to be over following GE's profit warning. Before the warning the consensus was that the economy was slowing. Now there is evidence that the slowdown is hurting companies. When one of the largest companies in the world does not meet targets, the chances are that more companies will miss earnings forecast.

This comes at the end of a four-week rally in equities which I have labelled a bear market rally. This is because one of my sentimentindicators, the 34-day BTI, has been negative since January. A negative 34-day BTI is associated with bear markets. I suspect the next leg downhas started but for a few stocks like Rio Tinto (RIO) and BG Group (BG-), the oncoming decline could be seen as a simple correction. Thesestocks are making new highs in a bear market.

Take Rio Tinto. The recent break into new highs completes an inverse headand shoulders which is a bullish continuation pattern.

Note that prices tested the area 5910p-5920p on several occasions before breaking decisively higher a few days ago. The long term uptrend is intact. The stock may pull back in the next few days if the general market continues to decline but in the medium term an initial target is 6800p

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - "Rio Tinto said it secured an overall 85 percent increase in iron ore prices for the contract year starting April 1, 2008.

The world's third-largest mining group said the price for iron ore fines will increase 79.9 percent to 144.66 cents per dry metric tonne, while lump iron ore prices will jump 96.5 percent to 201.69 cents a metric tonne. The overall 85 percent rise is based on the production split with fines accounting for about three quarters of output and lump iron ore the remainder.

The price increase exceeds the 65 percent rise secured by Vale, the world's largest iron ore producer, for fines and the 71 percent gain the Brazilian company agreed for lump iron ore under the annual contracts with steelmakers.

The new prices could boost Rio Tinto's sales by about $2 billion a year in addition to the 65 percent already factored in based on the Vale contract negotiations, an analyst who asked not to be named said."

Bought some of these today at just over 49 today. They are so massively volatile they make the dow look tame. Could be quite a risky purchase with move to banks from miners oils but could also be a big winner. They bounced from this level in the feb sell off to 73 but then again the landscspe has changed since then

The talk of 60 share offer doesn't look too bad at the moment.

Just bought some of these at 32 nice falling knife though it did visit 36 as recently as this morning probably be long term hold as lots of support at 30/29, not convinced that Asia will lose interest in building over the next 5 years

Another drop today due to the price of metals going down again.
Shares are trading 19% below BHP's offer of 3.4 shares for each RIO shares.

It cannot make it's mind up today up 80 down -30 up 70 down 20.

She's certainly a volatile beast, short term target of 35

Probably worth a punt at these levels?

i note RIO closed down a whopping 326 at 2424

Had to hedge position at 2800 good feature of ig cfds and also reduces margin to zero

Had to hedge position at 2800 good feature of ig cfds and also reduces margin to zero

am i right in thinking that BLH's bid for RIO has now been approved by Oz gov't?

the answer is yes, my memory is not as soggy as many imagine ..... Oz gov't cleared the (potential) bid on 1st October

any time frame for the t/o ofer?
at 3.4 BLT for one RIO . RIO is at a nice discount, obviously if deal doesn't go through...DYOR
Alex

and both pay a divi too

RIO in freefall now BLT deal off. anyone care to speculate a bottom price for this now?

bloody hell, and that is an understatement!
RIO down 9.00+ having been up 3-4.00 yesterday.
Some serioulsy hurt people today following news of BHP dumping their bid .... surely that has been less than doubtful for some time.
Could be worth a small flutter to catch the bounce that must surely come

I am assuming some of the high price of RIO was due to the proposed b/out. what price would you give to stand alone. I never did get to buy in, so got lucky.
still interested. now not so sure whether to stick with this stock or go for BLT[my original plan]
Alex