LONDON: Copper prices continued to recover on Monday, supported by some exemptions from US tariffs, hopes that top metals consumer China would unroll more stimulus measures and a weaker dollar.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) rose 0.9% to $9,238 a metric ton in official open-outcry trading after hitting $9,271.5 for its highest since April 4.
Copper is up 14% since sliding to a multi-month low of $8,105 a ton a week ago, when tariff sparring between the US and China - the world’s two largest economies - exacerbated fears over global economic growth. “The market seem to have found a base and seen the lows for now,” one metals trader said, adding that the recent fall in copper prices attracted buying interest.
In the latest twist, US President Donald Trump’s administration granted exclusions from tariffs on smartphones, computers and some other electronics imported largely from China.
The exemptions may be short-lived after Trump said on Sunday that he would be announcing the tariff rate on imported semiconductors this week.
On the technical front, the LME copper contract is facing resistance from the 100-day moving average at $9,280. Meanwhile, the spread between LME cash copper and the three-month contract was volatile ahead of this week’s LME contract settlement. It was last at zero, compared with a premium of $37 a ton at Friday’s close and a discount of $38 a week ago.
In China, official data showed that the country’s January-March imports of copper and copper products fell 5.2% as a persisting premium of Comex copper against London prices prompted a redirection of some of the shipments to the US Comex copper stocks stand at a six-year high of 117,821 tons, having been on the rise since mid-March while the US examines potential new import tariffs. The outflow from traditional copper-consuming markets to the US helped to lift the Yangshan copper premium, which reflects demand for copper imported into China, to its strongest since late 2023 $89 a ton, up from $35 in early March.
In other metals, LME aluminium gained 0.1% to $2,398 a ton in official activity, zinc eased by 0.1% to $2,650, lead added 0.2% to $1,918 while tin climbed by 1.4% to $31,650 and nickel jumped 2.1% to $15,380.
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