After reaching a record high price late last week, the price of copper took a big hit earlier this week before a late week rebound bounced prices back toward $4.60 a pound. While the price swings varied by as much as 30 cents a pound, nearly all analysts still say we can expect to see high copper prices through next year.
On Wednesday, May 19, copper prices took the biggest drop, about 4%, from above $4.80 a pound to $4.63 a pound. After a brief spike to $4.77 pound on Thursday, copper is trading below $4.55 a pound on Friday morning, May 21.
China, which is one of the world’s top consumers of copper, announced on Wednesday that it would try to manage its supply of copper as a way to fight off spikes in prices. That created the immediate, world-wide price drop. Also on Wednesday, one of the largest copper mine producers announced that it will be increasing production by nearly 2% to try to keep pace with demand, but it will fall short of the amount of copper it expected to mine this year.
Goldman Sachs researcher Nick Snowdon said on his podcast this week that he has never before seen a long-term supply gap for copper, and he expects that over the next 10 years, copper supplies will be about 40% short of demand.
Tagged with Biggest News, copper