Copper market’s biggest whale fuels speculation of a major shift
The world’s single biggest buyer of copper, State Grid Corp. of China, has slowed its purchases of copper wire this year.
Copper prices rose on Monday, supported by lowered global supplies.
Copper for delivery in May on the Comex market in New York touched $4.09 per pound ($8,998 per tonne), up 0.5% compared to Friday’s closing.
[Click here for an interactive chart of copper prices]
The most-traded May copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was up 0.2% to 69,250 yuan ($10,073.61) a tonne.
Copper inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange were down 11.6% last Friday, falling for a fourth consecutive week.
Stocks have declined 36.2% so far to 161,152 tonnes, from a peak in late February.
“Funds have dumped their bets on higher copper prices as the turbulence triggered by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank continues to roil financial markets,” wrote Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.
“Early-year enthusiasm for copper as a proxy for China’s re-opening from stringent lockdown has succumbed to the contagious fear spreading from the banking sector to other risk asset classes.”
(With files from Reuters)
