After hovering either side of $3.00 a pound since mid-September, the price of copper suddenly took a tumble on Friday, losing 3.8% to $2.85 a pound.
That’s the lowest since June 2010, just before a rally that saw the red metal reach a record above $4.50 a pound by February the following year.
No-one is predicting that kind of recovery this time around, but industry bellwether Codelco at least sees it up from today’s price.
Or perhaps the fresh to the job chief executive of the struggling Chilean giant that produces more than a tenth of the world’s copper hadn’t checked New York futures on Friday before he made these upbeat comments to the Wall Street Journal on Friday:
“Our vision is that the price of copper for next year should be about $3.00 a pound, with variations,” Nelson Pizarro said Friday at a press conference.
In the January to September period this year, the average price of copper reached $3.15 a pound, 6% less than in the same period a year earlier, the company said.
Revenues from sales totaled $7.71 billion in the January to September period this year, $1.1 billion less than in the same period a year earlier as the price of copper dropped.
Continue reading at WSJ Online.
Comments
Firdaus Abbasi
China demand down and focus is elsewhere. U.S emerging; albeit not too fast. Rely on the E.U to guarantee disappointments and still scrambling in the long-grass to find a way out from structural re-adjustments. Does anyone see doldrums for the mining sector re-bounding before 2017?
I only see strife from China as it builds it’s defences/ navy and pissing on everyones lawn! The necessary reaction to re-armament will be the signal for re-bound.