LONDON: London copper prices rose on Monday after a broad sell-off to the lowest level in over 16 months, while most other growth-dependent metals prices fell amid fears that global trade tensions would reduce demand.
The benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) rose 1.0% to $8,865 per metric ton in official open-outcry trading. The contract touched $8,105, its lowest since November 2023, in early Asian hours of the session.
“LME is pricing in quite a great deal of bad news on the economic front … Some buyers have started to emerge ahead of the key levels, so it looks like there is a bit of a technical flow under the market,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank. Economic worries persisted after US President Donald Trump told reporters over the weekend that investors would have to take their “medicine” and that he would not make a deal with China until the US trade deficit was resolved. On Friday, top metals consumer China retaliated with a slew of counter-measures, including extra levies of 34% on all US goods and export curbs on some rare earth metals.
“We think that base metals have likely put in their 2025 highs as they seem to be adversely caught up in the US-China crossfire,” said Marex consultant Edward Meir.
In “our base case, we see metals demand weakening further and in effect, offsetting supply shortages.” Among other metals, LME aluminium was steady at $2,379 a ton in official activity, lead dipped 1% to $1,887, zinc dropped 2.5% to $2,592, tin was down 3.7% at $34,075 and nickel slipped 1.4% to $14,545 a ton.
Citi lowered its 0-3 month copper and aluminium price forecasts to $8,000 and $2,200, respectively, and noted that it is entirely plausible that “these targets are reached over the coming week, if not, even more likely over the next 3 months.”
Meanwhile, Bank of America, taking the 2018/19 US-China trade dispute as a reference, forecast that copper could likely fall below $8,000 by summer.
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