Column: Speculative heat keeps copper market bubbling – Andy Home
LONDON (Reuters) – The copper price hit a fresh 2020 high on Tuesday morning.
London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month metal extended its remarkable recovery from the March lockdown lows of $4,371 to $7,331 per tonne, the highest trade since June 2018.
The strength of China’s manufacturing rebound and the country’s seemingly insatiable appetite for imports of refined copper are the fundamental bedrock of copper’s 2020 turnaround.
But funds are now increasingly in the driving seat with investor positioning at or near historical highs on both the CME and LME contracts.
As speculative momentum keeps building, so too does the risk of a reality-check on the current exuberance.
Graphic: Fund positioning on the CME copper contract –