Categories:
Base Metals
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General Market Commentary
Topics:
General Base Metals
/
General Market Commentary
Copper price surges over 10% after touching 2009 lows
Copper dropped sharply again in overnight trade on Thursday, coming close to levels last seen during the global financial crisis amid mounting uncertainty about the extent the global pandemic could hit demand and supply of the bellwether metal.
Copper trading in New York fell by more than 8% to $1.9725 a pound ($4,350 a tonne), the weakest level since early January 2016, when it traded below $2.00 for only a week. The last time it traded for a sustained period below this level was in 2008 and 2009.
In New York trade the metal fought back, rallying by 11.6% with May delivery contracts exchanging hands for $2.1990 in the mid-afternoon session. Year to date copper is still in bear territory with a 21% decline.
“In terms of understanding the short-term supply-demand dynamics, uncertainty is the highest I can recall,” Mark Hansen, chief executive officer of metals trading house Concord Resources, told Bloomberg from London.
“China responded more forcefully to the economic downturn in 2015-16 than it has now, which is both curious but also should give hope to resource demand possibly returning strongly, at some point.”
Global recession
Thanks to its widespread use in industry, transportation, construction and power grids, copper is vulnerable to slowdown in the broader economy.
“IT CAN ONLY BE COMPARED TO WARTIME DOWNTURNS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY”
Tommy Wu, lead economist, Oxford Economics
A panel of 80 economists polled by FocusEconomics, a Barcelona-based research firm, have become markedly more pessimistic about the global impact of the pandemic.
Almost two-thirds of panelists now expect a global recession in the next 12 months, up from 43% in last week’s poll, and despite the slew of fiscal and monetary stimulus measures announced in recent days says FocusEconomics.