By Jim Williams
The French election didn’t impact the price of copper too much, but news out of China has tilted the scales to start the week.
The election in France went as most experts predicted, so the impact was minimal on copper. The focus now turns to the country’s legislative elections next month to see if newly elected president Emmanuel Macron can push through his agenda.
The China Impact
LME Copper prices plummeted 1.8 percent on Monday, to four-month lows as investors received bad news out of China.
Official customs data from China shows the country’s refined copper imports in April dropped by 30 percent to 300,000 tons, compared to the previous month. Digging further, the recently released data shows China’s year-on-year import volumes also fell by a third.
Red Metal Outlook
According to Reuters, inventories on LME warehouses climbed by 36,800 tons on Friday, bringing last week’s surge to 40 percent.
Source: www.mining.com
As of this morning, LME Copper prices were trading higher by 0.1 percent at $5489 a ton. Analysts at Angel Commodities predict copper will trade lower today as high inventories at both LME and Shanghai warehouses will add to supply woes. Also, investors are cautiously waiting for inflation numbers from China (due tomorrow) and G7 Meetings later this week.
This chart (right), from www.mining.com, shows copper futures trading on the Comex market in New York. The red metal is down 7 percent since last week.
“Copper has not been able to make a higher high since the middle of February,” states Andrew Hecht of Seeking Alpha. “The current trading pattern suggests that it is preparing to revisit and perhaps test the level it looked up at for the better part of 2016.”
Further Reading
Bloomberg posted a story late last week titled, Surging Copper Stockpiles Point to Concerns Over Global Demand.
Tagged with China, copper, election, France, tED