* Gartman sees mid-top copper consolidation
    * Settlement above $3.90/lb to fuel further gains
    * Forecasts $4.25-$4.30/lb copper price in months ahead

    By Chris Kelly	
    Feb 8 (Reuters) - A recent phase of consolidation in
copper prices has the look of a "mid-point" consolidation rather
than a top, suggesting further strength in the months ahead,
veteran investor Dennis Gartman said.	
    Gartman, who has been long copper since early January, said
he expects to see the industrial metal climb back toward price
levels last seen in August, given its positive technical backing
and robust fundamental picture.	
    "From a purely technical perspective it appears to us that	
the recent consolidation on the COMEX futures, effectively
between $3.78 - $3.90 per lb, has the look of a mid-point
consolidation rather than that of a top," he said in the
Wednesday edition of his newsletter, The Gartman Letter.	
 	
    "Should copper close its activities later today in New York
upward through $3.90 ... we shall cast our eyes toward a target
of $4.25-4.30/lb over the course of the next several months."	
    The benchmark March copper contract on COMEX traded
up through $3.90 per lb on Wednesday to touch an early high of
$3.9350, just shy of its late-January peak of $3.9380 -- its
priciest level in four months.	
    A bullish trend in London Metal Exchange-monitored warehouse
inventories -- down more than 20 percent since last November --
has further supported Gartman's bullish outlook , even as
stockpiles of the metal in Shanghai warehouses have gone the
other way.	
    Shanghai copper stocks CU-STX-SGH jumped 36.6 percent, or
48,246 tonnes, to 179,891 tonnes over the two weeks from Jan 20.	
    "It was only last November that inventories of copper on the
LME were very near to four times that of the inventories in
Shanghai: 400,000 tonnes versus approximately 100,000.	
    "Now, however, LME inventories have fallen to 329,000
tonnes, while copper in Shanghai has risen to 132,000. The
copper bears might find some news to assuage their position
taking, but on balance, world inventories are down, not up, and
that is where we take our bullish solace from," Gartman said.	
	
 (Reporting By Chris Kelly; editing by Jim Marshall)