we want to bring in tracy alloway. ve been looking at copper, which everyone uses as a proxy -- it has become a proxy for china. tracy: that is kind of fair to say. we have a lot of debate right now about the actual work of copper. floors me that we are still -- it floors me that we are still discussing this three or four years on. we are still trying to gauge how much chopper -- copper there is in the world. this is one of my all-time favorite financial stories. a bunch of commodities traders were using copper as collateral to secure loans. to a large extent, we have estimates from the bank for international settlements saying that this was as much as $1 trillion trade using copper and other metals to finance loans. joe: explain the mechanics. how did it work? how did they make money? tracy: it is usually commodities traders using copper as collateral to secure a loan at 1% or it they say -- 1%. they go out and sell their collateral for a high price and earn something like 10% by using the money they get from selling t

tracy alloway and i are both weather geeks. tom: you're going into hurricane hysteria.blow away. the models are undecided. they seem to be moving east, but that doesn't mean it cannot affect the markets. somebody who is as interested in this as you has found a way. >> i have been staring at my bloomberg map function all morning and watching the cone of uncertainty of joaquin as it moves across the screen. the models on where the hurricane is going are uncertain, but traders are also placing bets. interestingly, yesterday we saw companies like home depot and lowe's perform better than the overall market, ostensibly of people betting there's going to be a need for home supplies and rebuilding equipment. we saw one power generator company up 10% yesterday, which was its best performance at about two years. certain people are certainly making bets this hurricane is going to make landfall somewhere in the u.s. we have seen the property and ensures down a little bit. we're looking for the second order effects and commodities markets, oil rigs -- we will see what happens. mike